Is Crowdsourcing Really the Industry’s Dark Side?
Guest post by Adam Weitz
[Ed: Apart from Kirsten Wright, Adam also responded on Twitter to my original MycroBurst post. Here is his guest post.]
“Oh, crap.”
Those words jumped out of my mouth when I learned what crowdsourcing was. Despite being relatively unknown at the time, I knew this trend was going to pose a threat to businesses like mine.
How could it not? With crowdsourcing you could simply log on to a website and get work from incredibly talented designers from all over the world, with different styles and approaches. You then got to keep the best one and only pay that person. Why wouldn’t small businesses jump at that opportunity? Like a lot of designers I was scared.
Filed under Business, Guest Posts, Marketing, Social Media | Tags: adam weitz, crowdsourcing, givebag.org, Marketing, positioning | Comments (7)Crowdsourcing & Spec Work: Not a Great Rule of Thumb
Guest post by Kirsten Wright
[Ed: Kirsten Wright had a strong reaction to my recent post on MycroBurst. Since I respect her opinion, I invited her to guest post on WUL as to why she doesn't think crowdsourcing is the way to go. Here you have it.]
To start, what is spec work?
- Traditional spec work. This is usually done by new designers to get themselves experience and using “free” to outbid any other designers.
- Crowd-sourcing: This is the type that fits sites like 99 designs and MycroBurst. This is the type of work that we’re talking about.
So let’s talk about exactly what happens when a project gets crowdsourced: Continue reading »
It’s a Mad Mad (Men) World
or, The Horror CrowdSourcing and Social Media has Unleashed on Madison Avenue
Guest post by Joe Witte
It’s ironic that one of the most talked about shows on TV these days is Mad Men, a drama set in the 1960′s following a bunch of sex-crazed advertising execs on Madison Avenue.
Image: buck82 via Flickr, CC 2.0
My first job, after attending the Army Officer’s Basic Course, was at USA Networks in 1997. I was a peon Assistant Account Executive. I didn’t really care for the industry. Lots of waste, very little ingenuity, but most of all, my job was boring and I was being paid less than $25k a year while trying to survive in Manhattan.
But back then, there was a air of confidence in the television world. Ad execs making $250k+, liquid lunches, million dollar parties, and the self-same ad agency execs being flown to Paris on a Concord for the French Open. And this was Cable TV.
Filed under Guest Posts, Marketing, Social Media | Tags: advertising, crowdsourcing, joe witte, mad men, madison avenue, mycroburst, Social Media | Comments (3)
