Crowdsourcing
community
As a concept we know specifically from product development, open innovation is an extension of traditional R&D. The new term for the convergence of both is “crowdsourcing”: an appropriate marriage of the terms “(out)sourcing” and “crowd surfing.” What this means is that “The productive potential of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses. It doesn’t matter where the laborers are, as long as they are connected to the network.”
The characteristics of crowdsourcing – user involvement in innovations, new type of licenses, unpaid work, a community of strongly motivated participants, transparent and meritocratic management, closed and open models that supplement each other – are all aspects of open source software. In fact, that’s where the story begins.
Me Media
In an exceptionally emphatic manner, the new media power has confirmed the power of the media and the role of media hype. However, this power has now been distributed via the multi-media World Wide Web. The Web has liberated “We the People,” individualizing us, socializing us and emancipating us.
It has transformed each one of us into a media organism, into “Me the Media.” This trend, which is only just beginning, represents a Third Media Revolution, following the individuation and socialization brought about over the past 400 years by print and electronics. For the first time in history, everyone— individuals, organizations, brands or objects—can use simple and inexpensive tools to “broadcast” to all other identities existing throughout the world and to establish contact with them. All media are extensions of some human faculty: mental or physical.
Sharing experiences
Of everything that is broadcast on the new Me-Media, businesses are most interested in the experiences, encounters, emotions, opinions and jokes of ordinary people. This new content affects product choice, brand experiences and purchasing decisions. A large portion of all preferences, knowledge and ideas is shared over the new networks. For instance, knowledge systems have emerged, ranging from Wikipedia to TripAdvisor. They are used to share private and commercial information and to increase knowledge for such purposes as the creation of new products and services or the updating of existing ones.
Empowering Hyperegos
Just as the Internet gave rise to hypercompetition in the nineties, modern Web media is empowering individuals, organizations and brands, transforming them into so called Hyperegos (identities whose characteristics and deeds are interwoven through hyperlinks into a single large Me-Media Mass).
No more secrets
Organizations have to deal with a communication explosion that, for the most part, occurs outside of their control. For this reason, it has become more difficult to keep things secret. Everything has become more visible and transparent.
Make or Break Brands
The intimacy among Hyperegos is a distinctive characteristic of the new Me-Media. Within social networks and other communities, ad hoc power blocks can make or break a brand or organization.
Sharing is the new taking
Everything within the new media mass has been established on the Internet and everything has an equally serious status. Errors and indecent intentions are difficult to clearly indicate to others. Organizations are therefore required to conduct an open policy and ensure that they have an untarnished reputation insofar as their products, services and treatment of people are concerned.