Co-creation is superior to Crowdsourcing for collaborative ideation in market research.

1. Kevin P. Lonnie
President & CEO, KL Communications
Klcommunications.com
August 12, 2013
KL Communications
“The Power of the Crowd Lies in Co-
creation, not Crowdsourcing”

2. CrowdSourcing is Still Evolving
• The term Crowdsourcing feels mainstream, but author Jeff Howe’s
book on the subject is only six years old.
• The term “Crowdsourcing” and the use of the crowd continues to
evolve. Initially, most forms of crowdsourcing were based on cost
savings measures. Essentially, firms could outsource manpower (e.g.
Amazon Turk) or even its inventory (e.g. Stock Photo firms like
ShutterStock or iPhotos) to the crowd.

3. The Practice relies on Open
Source
• Crowdsourcing may have also benefited from the recent recession
with firms finding an inexpensive army of recently unemployed
service providers. In fact, most of the negative stigma associated
with crowdsourcing is the idea of finding cheap labor.
• That said, the roots of crowdsourcing lie in open-sourcing. Perhaps
the best example of open-sourcing would be the Linux operating
system.

4. CrowdSourcing Diverges from
Open-Source
• That is where crowdsourcing began to splinter from open-
sourcing. In the open-sourcing paradigm, the process was an
incremental journey. Passionate contributors worked to make their
small personal input on the overall project. Collaboration and
working together were more than implied, they were fundamental
to the success of an open-sourced project.
• Crowdsourcing more often than not is a winner take all
concept. Whether it’s designing the next Doritos Super Bowl ad or
building a more accurate algorithm for Netflix, there are clear
winners.

5. Co-creation is Superior to
Crowdsourcing for Ideation
• My interest for capturing The Wisdom of Crowds lies in successful
product ideation and I feel the best option to achieve that lies in
customer co-creation and not crowdsourcing.
• Why is that? Because I feel that Co-Creation, as opposed to
Crowdsourcing is a collaborative experience. A collaborative,
iterative and incremental development process has already been
successfully applied in open-sourcing and agile software
development. I believe that’s the blueprint we need to follow for
successful customer co-creation.

6. CrowdSourcing vs. Co-creation
6
• As a basis for comparison, let me list key elements that are unique to
each camp:

7. Co-creation Lends itself to
Incremental Collaboration
• As you can see, the elements of Customer Co-Creation more closely
align with the principles of incremental
collaboration. Crowdsourcing is more of a poker tournament, where
one person or team wins the pot.
• Since the role of the market research function to leverage customer
insights for better decisions (and in this case, better products), then
it is Customer Co-Creation that the MR industry needs to embrace.

8. Stop Calling it Crowdsourcing!
• That might be news for the MR Sourcebooks. All of which have
defaulted to the Crowdsourcing moniker as the umbrella to describe
customer involvement in the ideation process. In fact, Quirks lists
almost 250 possible research services including Crowdsourcing, but
as of this writing, they have yet to create a category for Co-creation.
• It’s time for the MR industry trade associations and journals to stop
referring to customer led innovation as Crowdsourcing and instead
use the more accurate term of Customer Co-Creation.
• Customer Co-creation has the potential of being a powerful new
opportunity for our industry to finally put customers in the driver’s
seat. This reciprocal relationship, consistent with the mindset of the
social media generation can significantly impact the success rate of
product ideation. A seat at the table, a long stated goal of our
industry, would be assured.

9. Is Everyone on Board?
• If we weren’t dealing with the realities of office politics and siloed
approaches, then yes, I think everyone would be on board. The key
barrier to successful customer co-creation will likely come from
internal politics. Expecting the incumbent creatives (e.g. ad agency,
product/brand/marketing managers, R&D Departments, etc.) to
willingly follow the wisdom of crowds is naive. This is a threat to
their autonomy. We must anticipate their resistance and take every
step to position customer ideation as “inspiration” and not “final
solution.”
• If a company truly wants to integrate customer co-creation into their
ideation process, they need to be mindful of the advice offered by
Upton Sinclair who said “Never expect someone to understand
change when their livelihood depends on not understanding it.”

10. Kevin Lonnie
President
klonnie@klcommunications.com
732-224-9991