The real estate industry has always been quite static while facing its own set of challenges and obstacles. However, technological innovations will reshape every industry eventually, real estate included.
Crowdsourcing is often associated with start-ups and blue-chip companies who are trying to innovate, but it has the potential to reach far beyond those with seed money and infinite endowments. The beauty of crowdsourcing is that it is rooted in grassroots fundamentals—an environment that is ideal for non-profit businesses.
Running a small business is not easy, especially when the small business is just starting out. Any misstep, even well-intentioned, can cause a serious setback. But have no fear! There’s a whole untapped squad of people out there ready to work for you for free! Here are three ways crowdsourcing is good for small businesses.
Even before the term was coined in Wired Magazine in 2006, crowdsourcing was utilized as a way to accomplish goals. The strategy had been used for several hundred years before it was officially given a name, but since being named, crowdsourcing has grown into a huge field, spawning subdivisions of the strategy and being used for a multitude of purposes. Wikipedia is one of the most recognizable and mainstream instances of crowdsourcing, designed to elicit and compile knowledge from the masses. Crowdsourcing has been used in real time to track public transportation and traffic updates with various apps.
Innovation is a word that’s been heard on the lips of more CEOs, read in more broadsheet papers, and detailed in more business magazines in the last ten months than ever before. It’s well regarded that those businesses that fail to innovate risk death; consider the sad fates of longstanding companies like Woolworths, Polaroid, Blockbuster, and Borders over the last ten years. But how, as an individual, can you incorporate innovation and creative thinking into your everyday working life, all while keeping up with the already manic pace of modern business?
The rise of crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, crowdtransporting, crowdletting, etc., has transformed our economy. It has also ushered in the era of the shared economy. Previously marginalized people can now contribute, no matter how small, to all walks of life. It seems to be a fantastic opportunity for the world to access the untapped skill of the crowd. But what about the people whose jobs this makes redundant? Whither the expert?
Innovation has become a bit of a business buzzword. Every CEO and CIO worth their salt wants to be seen to be on the forefront, bringing new products and services to a market. However, it doesn’t always go to plan, and rushing in to things head first without the proper due diligence can land a company in hot water.
The origins of ‘crowdsourcing’ lie very much in the business world. The term is widely accepted to have been coined by Wired magazine in 2006, in an article analysing how businesses were beginning to outsource tasks, usually handled by an individual to a larger number of people, in the expectation it would gain faster results for a cheaper price. Since then, business use of crowdsourcing techniques has become more established. Crowdfunding, for example, has become a common way of raising funds, while Spigit Engage customers provide a great example of how businesses are applying crowdsourcing to the innovation process.
Utilising crowd led approaches to create value is increasingly familiar in both the literature of business comment and reporting and through our own experience. Crowdassets, as we refer to them, represent a profound and enduring source of innovation and we must adapt and respond to this opportunity. In the fourth of a series of articles focused on Innovation Culture, we are going to provide a more holistic view of the concepts as well as the means to embrace the growing opportunities presented by the crowd empowered ecosystem.
Today, almost any B2B firm claims to be “customer-oriented”. However, only few firms have a rigorous and stringent system that integrates the “best” (B2B) customers into its innovation process – where “best” in this context is measured not by volume of sales but by contribution to the firm’s innovation. A lot of insight has been generated on how to engage consumers in the innovation process. There is also a growing body of knowledge about how to innovate openly on the R&D side of the innovation process. But little has been written up so far about how to systematically integrate B2B customers in the firm’s Open Innovation system. innovation-3’s Frank Mattes closes this gap by sharing some insights.
Just because you can create a crowdfunding campaign for your next Big Idea doesn't mean you should, as book author Glenn Fleishman recently discovered.
To sell ourselves and our big ideas, we need elevator pitches that stand out, are unique and stimulate a response. Clearly, some creativity is what is needed to design such a pitch. Jeffrey Baumgartner explains how to develop one.
