I think in concept it may work, but actually starting a "business" using those methods would be nearly impossible. I think the concept of crowd-sourcing works in terms of increasing buying power, generating ideas etc. but running a business I just don't see working.

Yeah, I can't imagine it would actually work, but am really curious to see 1st what the interest level is and 2nd if there's some way to manage this that would work if a group of people was really dedicated to it.

Thanks for commenting, Derek.

Great post.

I work at a company called Cambrian House and this is where we started with crowdsourcing back in 2006 - over the three years since we started, we learned a lot. If you want to chat about what works and what doesn't, let me know. Some stuff is surprising - for example, contrary to Marshell_Macias' comment below - people love sharing their ideas online (we were expecting a few hundred, ended up with over seven thousand).

There's different levels of crowdsourcing - sharing, cooperation, collaboration and collectivism (from Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody); there's different types of crowdsourcing - market prediction, brand collaboration, product innovation and and research & discovery; there's also different interactions within a crowdsourcing community - you can collaborate with community members, or you can compete against them.

As with all crowdsourced/opensource projects, people have different levels of commitment. How will you reward people who participate at the beginning, then drop out? ...or people that hop on board at the end, but then contribute substantially?

There's plenty to think about that isn't immediately apparent, but if you go ahead with it, you'll be solving issues within a business model that really seems to be "the way of the future"

V cool.
Keep on bloggin'
Blue (blue@cambrianhouse.com)

Thanks for the great info Blue. I'd like to note that in my previous comment I was not trying to say that people do not love to share their ideas online. I think you are correct in that people love to share (Hints the explosion in social networks online). I was merely suggesting there should be some sort of filter or exclusivity to the site once an idea has been generated and conceptualized. This may follow the structure you suggested in different levels and types of crowdsourcing. A possible solution to your question about various levels of commitment in each idea may be solved partially with the member voting/ranking process, but there is the problem of favoritism and ghost voting- (But this wouldn't be a problem if it was an exclusive site where each member gets 1 vote). As you pointed out, there is a lot that is note immediately apparent, but that's the point of getting multiple views, thoughts?
Your offer to share your experience on what does(nt) work is too good to pass up- do you have any data/docs that you can share relating to Cambrian House's our your experiences with crowdsourcing?....As Eric has mentioned, case studies are more substantial than claims.
On another note TO ALL: Here is an article from Wharton that touches on a similar idea: Innovation Networks (Perhaps another angle to take) http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?...

Check out Amazon's Mechanical Turk. It's already happening!

Good point. I was involved with mturk years ago when I think it was still pretty new and haven't looked at it much since then, so I can't say for certain, but if it's still the same, that's a bit different from what I was thinking. If I recall correctly, mturk was more of a variation of freelancing, right?

The problems with sharing good "income generating" ideas in a public site are obvious.The site would need to be an exclusive place where the nonsense is screened out prior to group brainstorming (although, there is something to say for crazy "nonsense" ideas). The reason for the exclusivity is the limit on shareholders on most business types...and to keep idea sharks from stealing all the good ideas from the start. The revenue sharing platform may work if each member is ranked or voted on by the community based on who is providing the best ideas and or useful work. Essentially, each new idea would be a new "business" where shares could be distributed based on involvement and support (including the Execs that you discussed in your clip)....The revenue model then is simply a dividend per share based on Net Profit. I think your idea is very good and I'd love to run with it! We should connect soon- want to grab some coffee this week?

Shares... Something tells me you've worked in investing ;-)