We are delighted to announce that John Winsor, Founder and CEO of Victors & Spoils, will be the keynote speaker at Future of Crowdsourcing Summit 2010.
He has a fantastic story to tell of how he and his colleagues have built Victors & Spoils, the world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles.
The name comes from Victors, because there are always multiple winners from the participants in their open, cocreated creative processes. And Spoils are shared among a number of participants.
The company is looking to fill their Creative Department with talent. However they warn:
But fair warning: We’re picky. Because the Victors & Spoils Creative Department must and will maintain a level of talent that’s second to none.
This nicely illustrates what for me is one of most important perspectives on crowdsourcing: this is really about getting the very, very best people to work for you, and not about trying to get things on the cheap, as many people think it is.
In a nice link to the themes of last year’s cross-continental Future of Influence Summit, which looked at influence and reputation, each creative working in or for the firm builds their V&S Reputation Score which determines their share in revenue.
Non-ranked creatives can earn money in simple clearly-defined projects. For example V&S recently closed a competition to come up with ideas for Harley-Davidson, with each winning idea earning $5,000.
John has rock-solid credentials in the agency world, formerly working as executive director of strategy and product innovation at Crispin, Porter & Bogusky, and is author of a couple of books including Baked In , Spark and Flipped.
In a great article by John Winsor a few months ago in BusinessWeek on The Future of Advertising , he explores how the current advertising model is broken, and what happens when the world is your creative department.
The old system of agencies employing a few creative teams to come up with agenda-setting ideas simply doesn’t make sense in a digital era where ideas can and should come from anywhere. Digital tools can be used to tap into the wider world of creativity, and can do so with a lean infrastructure. It’s a win for the client, who gets access to a diversity of ideas. It’s a win for creative talent, who aren’t bound to work on the particular accounts held by their agency.
Mass collaboration, co-creation, and crowdsourcing are becoming increasingly important vehicles for clients looking to engage the voices of consumers with brands. At last count there were more than 100 crowdsourcing platforms available for some kind of design or marketing work. Picking the right one is key. There are many factors to consider, from who is in a particular crowd to how talent is paid or how intellectual property is handled. Many times success will come from breaking a project into smaller pieces and tapping different crowds for the various different elements. In general, it seems it’s best to combine small private crowds (these days known as “expertsourcing”), where everyone working on the project signs a nondisclosure agreement, with bigger, more public crowds (crowdsourcing) to generate more ideas.
At Future of Crowdsourcing Summit 2010, Winsor will share big picture perspectives on how crowdsourcing is shaping work, organizations, and far more, and what he has learned in his ground-breaking crowdsourced agency model.
What do you think about crowdsourced agencies? Is the market ready? Will all agencies use crowdsourcing models? Where is this going?
