blur Group: the Power of Collective Intelligence

blur Group gives groups of individuals the power to profoundly shape the future. A digital future, designed by crowds, shaped around crowds, sourced by crowds. blur Group disrupts the status quo and the workplace as we know it. Wiping off the static, analogue culture in order to grant its crowds immediate and direct access to the resources and markets they need to drive this altered state.
 
The secret lies in a word: Crowdsourcing.
 
Crowdsourcing means making the most out of collective intelligence. At blur Group it means re-architecting the creative industries. Means enabling buyers of art, digital design, marketing services, media and innovation to get more affordable access to top talent. Means fair deals for their crowds of artists, designers, marketers, writers and entrepreneurs.
 
We believe that a few, highly qualified managers from an office and small, niche, highly managed-through-the-web crowds, coordinated in the right way, will become the virtual organizations of tomorrow. Why not build a marketing agency solely by crowdsourcing and remotely managing marketing professionals/consultants? Why not organize world artists to develop a new generation art market?
 
The benefit of doing it with a managed crowd as opposed to legions of full time employees is lower costs, greater flexibility, a more international approach, highly personalized services and, once more, better deals for both crowd member and client. Infinitely scalable intellectual property clouds.
 
This is the future of business. This is blur Group.

Blog to the Top!

Blogs have become the modern magazine, user-generated and widely acclaimed by the masses. Here are few tips to start yours and get your human brand out!

Photo by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

Useless to say that if you haven’t started blogging yet, you’re missing out. And if you’re trying to get your human brand out, regardless of what skills you have, a blog is the best tool to shout your potential out loud.

Posterous is a great place to start. Wordpress is where you’ll surely end up!

And here are few tips on how to nail the content plan: 5 things to know when starting your blog

Managing Your Personal Brand in the Interwebs

If you take social networking seriously you’ll end up with a personal brand. Here are some tips on how (not) to mange yours.

Photo by bonked via Flickr

If you’re reading this blog we’ll assume you’re experienced with social networks. Personal branding is the result of intensive use of social networking. A field we’ve been having fun with lately.

There are benefits in getting yourself out there, whatever your occupation or interest. Nonetheless, you have to make sure you deal with it in the right way.

Dan Schawbel shared a few interesting tips on worst practices that can get you fired.

Have a look at 10 Ways to Get Fired For Building Your Personal Brand.

A New Art Marketplace is Born

In 2007 a handful of pioneering artists had an idea. They thought that if they could use the Internet to unite and organize artists from around the world then together they could redefine the concept of art market. You see, they understood that world artists had had enough. Enough of making no money. Enough of working at Starbucks or McDonalds rather than in the studio. Enough of being abused by gallerists, dealers, critics and the art snoberati. Enough.

Today it is so bad that even talented artists regularly get denied a career by an antiquated and inefficient art market that is choked by a few hundred leading gallerists, a fistful of prickly critics and less than half a dozen auction houses. As a result emerging artists fail to get discovered, developed or promoted. It’s time for something different. Time for a new kind of art market, born from the Internet, developed and shaped by the artists, art buyers and art lovers – free from the establishment. So quietly, underground, b-uncut was born. At first offering a virtual studio network for artists from around the world to work together over the Web and share their art, opinions and concepts for a new art universe. And together they designed this new art market from the ground up, unfettered by the confines of legacy – offering FAIRTRADE for artists.

More than 700 artists have joined the b-uncut movement with 100 new artists signing up each month. So today they opened the doors to a new art marketplace with a next generation art gallery. An online museum store, an art bookstore with Amazon and an immersive art marketplace managed by b-uncut where artists can meet buyers and buyers can appreciate emerging artists and understand the international, emerging art universe. A place where artists get a better deal, where prices are fair and transparent. A place where art breaks. A place for the smartest buyers of emerging art.

The b-uncut team have taken online gallery to a new dimension with their “smooth” virtual artist studio visits. They already knew that b-uncut.com was THE place to be for up and coming artists and modern art buyers, but with their new, branded online gallery, innovation takes on a full and edgy purpose making great art accessible to many. Never before could you stroll through a cutting-edge gallery from the comfort of your armchair and peruse the details of artists’ work directly without any horse-trading middlemen or dealers. b-uncut puts you within one degree of separation of an infinite number of talented, international artists whether you’re looking for photography, paintings or digital art works – to create what can also be referred to as the “Art Web”.

Now that we are a long way from the uptight and dull approach of auction and gallery sales, this unique and exclusive space offers a fair deal to art producers, connoisseurs and first time buyers.

So sit back, relax, and let us take you on an art tour. Join us at b-uncut.com.

The Power of the Crowd

The power of the crowd. Synchronization in motion.

Natural. Spontaneous. Crowdsourced. Dig.

Crowdsourcing Star Wars

A bunch of Star Wars afficionados are getting together to remake the popular saga. Crowdsourcing is the star!

And we get ecstatic at blur when we hear this kind of news.

Long story straight from the website:

You and 472 other people have the chance to recreate Star Wars: A New Hope. Below is the entire movie split up into 15 second clips. Click on one of the scenes to claim it, film it, and upload it. You can have up to three scenes! When we’re all done, we’ll stitch it all together and watch the magic happen.

Follow them on twitter and may the Crowd be with you!

Kellogg’s take branding to a whole new level

Kellogg’s have become so concerned about supermarket cereals that they are now using a laser to burn their brand into each individual corn flake!

Helen Lyons, lead food technologist at Kellogg’s, said: ‘In recent years there has been an increase in the number of own brands trying to capitalise on the popularity of Kellogg’s corn flakes. We want shoppers to be under absolutely no illusion that Kellogg’s does not make cereal for anyone else.’

Which ever way you look at, it’s genius although maybe a little off putting when sitting down for breakfast, not only brand your packaging brand your product.

New blurgroup.com Live

The new blurgroup.com has gone live.

Check it – and thanks to everyone for their inputs.

Feedback welcome.

Taking Care of Our Crowds

We take a fairtrade approach to managing our crowds.

We also understand what its like for people going out on their own and devised bulletproof processes to make sure that your rights as an independent contractor are taken care of.

Mainly to avoid the following:

3 Tips to Getting Your Facebook Strategy Right

Hey singers, actors, artists and performers – are you getting your Facebook promotion right?

Photo by carbonated via Flickr

We recently launched Human Brands which we’re kinda excited about. It combines the vibrant visual effects of our design agency, blur Designs with the strategic influence of our digital agency, blur Marketing.

Expanding a bit on the latter, Facebook has become a vital marketing tool for most online activities. Mainly due to its exponential growth. The chances of you finding your target there tripled in the past few months.

Getting your Human Brand right on Facebook is something we love to do, but have a look at these 3 great tips to get you started.