CrowdGene is the power behind IdeasWatch: Startup inspiration from the crowd CrowdGene is a modular platform of human motivation-driven blocks that are rapidly adaptable for community websites. In IdeasWatch, users submit new business ideas, discuss them on idea pages, suggest similar projects that the idea submitter and his team should know of, request to join project teams, and watch ideas to get updates on activity.

1. The DNA of
Crowdsourcing
You’ve built a community.
Shouldn’t you have a fully-functional crowdsourcing site?

2. Crowdsourcing ain’t all about Crowdfunding
Sure, it could be.
Your members might
need feedback:
● imagery/logos
● book chapters
● people for a
project, even!

3. Crowdsource Design
Give the community
a starter idea and concept.
Collect ideas.
Share the hell out of them.
What people like, they might buy.

4. Get sufficient input before deciding
Too small a sample can lead to poor
choices.
(Feel like trying
to sell this…?)

5. The bigger the name who’s asking, the more input
you’ll get.
If it really matters,
get yourself a big name
collaborator.
“What do you think?”

6. Be ready to discard much of what you get
Ideas, content, and yes,
comments. Crowdsource, and
the more input you get, the
more you’ll toss.
(With a good-natured smile, of
course)

7. So, what is your community about?
Music? Still, there will be
many things to get input on:
● lyrics
● cover art
● costumes, personal branding
● marketing materials
Or even, “we need a drummer.”

8. Crowdsource your own makeover
Give your people multiple choices
and welcome negative feedback
along with the positive.
Provide only a “like” button and you
might make a choice you’ll regret...

9. Make a splash with a jab!
Crowdsourced
brand-bashing…
This got someone’s
attention!

10. How do you think data is collected?
What if you could
compile powerful
trend & market data
that you need for
clients at zero cost?
Perhaps you’ve been missing opportunities…?

11. Br prepared to socially share
You will need a
community site
with social sharing.
You will also need
to motivate site
users to share.

12. Make people look, make them smile
Your community site
must be user-friendly.
#uxdesign
And catch them
where they are.
#responsive

13. So, What do your people need
your site to do?
CrowdGene is an initiative from Michal Hudeček: a modular
platform of motivation-driven blocks that are useful and rapidly
adaptable for any type of community website. nearly any
community site that places high value on crowd input.
Here’s what we did with our own site, IdeasWatch >
Try the site (no registration needed), and email
keeper@ideaswatch.com with how you’d re-imagine
IdeasWatch if it was your community site.
http://ideaswatch.com

14. With CrowdGene, we can have your own social network
built and you running it - in as little as two weeks.
Develop & earn from your community
site with:
●
●
●
●
social registration & sign-in
moderation
advertising
social sharing & social proof
and you’re in charge, CEO & “admin.”
CG is the community site solution for:
non-profits, schools, clubs,
startup communities, communities of
creatives and entrepreneurs.

15. What do your site users want from the crowd?
Crowdstorming
Your users want to gather input, so the
CrowdGene team will work with you to
determine which features you want and
where you want them, such as...
Share a submission: In IdeasWatch,
this is an idea.
In your community site, “submissions”
might be...
●
startup pitches or
●
business plans or movie scripts
●
images, videos
●
or even a SlideShare presentation.

16. How will site users make submissions
searchable by the crowd?
Add hashtags: markers for classifying the submission.
●
●
●
hashtags can be topic keywords/phrases, locations, events or types of submission (in the case that your site will accept
more tha one type of media as a submission - i.e. #photo #video #presentation #howto #diy #pitch #idea #fun)
can be limited by either the CrowdGene-powered site’s administrator to make all submissions taggable by just the content
submitter or open to tagging by any user of the site.
separation of location tag and/or content type hashtag areas is also possible.

17. Empower your members to get others talking with them
Site users can start discussions regarding submissions.
Options for discussions:
●
they can be taggable (see last slide)
●
they can have threaded comments
●
users can have the option to receive
notifications on comments on their
discussions

18. Let members get others to vote up/down and monitor
submissions of interest
●
Up/down voting: this gives site users a way of indicating approval or rejection of content with a single click.
Content and even comments on content can appear on your designated pages or the homepage based upon:
○
meeting a pre-designated threshhold of a certain number of upvotes (minus downvotes).
○
across a category or among all community content submissions, feature submissions with the highest total number
of upvotes (minus downvotes).
●
Watching of community submissions:
this allows site users to indicate that they
would like to be know how the submission
develops. Registered site users can opt
to receive notifications on-site or by email.
Watches and votes on a submission
give your members validation from
the community: they see just how
much their ideas resonate.

19. Bring online communities together
In the video that follows, I show how I do this with the
Google+ Startup Bootstrappers Community and CrowdGene-powered IdeasWatch