blur Marketing took the FT Digital Media conference social.
blur’s Crowds and clouds jazzed things up at the eventful conference and ricocheted speakers perspectives across the Twittersphere and social networks.
It used to be that great design cost the earth.
Leading design agencies positioned themselves as reassuringly expensive. Assured rip off more like.
That was before the Internet spawned over 210 Million Websites. Before one third of the US working population found itself in design related jobs. Before Apple. Pre Steve.
In this new digital democracy where innovation hits the Web fast design is everything and design services need be accessible to anyone. Now they are.
New style design agencies that Crowdsource quality designers from all over the world are changing the game. Efficiently matching the right design to the right brand. The best fit designer to the most relevant project. Online – lightning fast.
Building scalable design marketplaces delivering $500 logos to $1 Million corporate identity projects or campaign creatives. We app design to iPhone slick. Product look to fragrance feel. Because, in this world of ‘intangible’, social media, always on – first impressions are everything – lasting impressions survival. The visual revolution real.
Start-ups, individuals, corporates, banks, government agencies, sole traders, builders, merchants, butchers, bakers and candle stick makers each need brands, word of mouth, feel good, do good, marketing nouse. Centre’d on design.
It’s the new global currency. Where’s yours?
Forget Crowdsourcing -- check this dude kite surfer clear a pier.
He’s got a life! You?
b-uncut is fast emerging as the worlds leading artist Crowdsourcing platform. The beginning of Art Market 2.0.
Here are some examples.
People have been commissioning artists for a thousand years. It is one of the earliest forms of trade.
Kings, Queens, Lords then industrialists, pioneers, even pirates took artists in and fed, housed and paid them to make great art. The artist commission is as old as time.
But, a system or channel for commissioning art has never been established. Almost every other form of trade has become formalized into retail, trade or barter networks and outlets. But not the art commission.
It is still an ad hoc, grey market. It may be worth billions of dollars a year, but it’s completely disorganized. If you happen to bump into an artist at a dinner party that sculpts how you like – bingo, you’ll commission him. Or not. There’s no marketplace for artists commissions. Buyers have little choice or price transparency. Artists have no route to market. Gallery’s are not geared up for it. Demand is undeveloped, supply patchy.
Well, its about to change. b-uncut the worlds leading network of emerging artists and a Web based art marketplace has just launched an online art commissioning system. b-uncut has over 1,500 artists, growing by 150 a month, from all geographies and every genre. So, art buyers and lovers can now use b-uncut’s artist commissioning system to efficiently order a commission.
Finally a marketplace can emerge for artist commissions. One where pricing is open, choice is abundant and the process of commissioning art is managed. Do you want to commission an artist?
Following our ‘What is Crowdsourcing?’ initiative here’s a great video explaining the phenomenon.
Jeff Howe, who coined the term Crowdsourcing, tells us what it’s all about.
The marketing services industry is changing. Big agencies are getting it from all sides.
Google has eroded their media buying divisions. Social media is challenging their PR departments, while YouTube is confusing the hell out of TV advertising production. And mobile marketing – well that’s a whole new game of tennis.
Direct marketing has gone digital and the Amazon rainforest has finally had its revenge. While Facebook could turn the existing concept of marketing and advertising on its head – making word of mouth, referral and subtle the future. That’s not exactly WPP for profits.
Mean time new trends such as Crowdsourcing mix guerrilla marketing with the Web on a scale never seen before so radically altering the very way in which brands interact with consumers and suppliers. There may be no turning back. Market research will become the preserve of Twitter tools and Web based data and conversation mining rather than research firms.
These trends and the digital revolution supporting them mean brands are increasingly going marketing DIY, while a whole legion of empowered, digital, micro agencies and freelancers are gnawing at big agency like shoals of locusts. Small is beautiful. Innovation necessitates it. And marketing campaigns ARE innovation – one after the other.
It may mean that the very concept of ‘agency’ fundamentally alters. Meta, virtual agencies such as blur Marketing, as massive clusters of independent creative folk and nano agencies could be the future.
Moving together, in legion, digitally synchronized – almost real time – like a massive shoal of fish united by Web Crowd platforms with cloud based account, project and campaign management systems binding them together, providing brands with the power of big, as clouds of the ’small’. Thinking, behaving, being like the Crowd they all serve, supported by social, digital, crowd and loud. Tomorrow’s agency – today. The future WPP. The people’s agency. The rain forests friend.
Crowdsourcing in plain English video.
Just launched -- Viral. Informative. Cool.
A quiet revolution is under way in the art world. One that few expected and most missed. Because it’s on the Web; called b-uncut.
It was started in 2007 by a group of contemporary artists, led by Philip Letts, as a new kind of collective. One without borders. One bound by the Web. They’re vision was simple. To use the digital world to reinvent the concept of artist collective and shift power to the 21st Century artist. So giving them greater indepenedence. They figured that if they could persuade enough artists to support this movement then, one day, the art world could become a bit less dealer centric. And a lot more open.
They reasoned that the dynamics of the 21st Century should fashion an artist centric ecosystem. Even a new kind of art market, one driven by the artists themselves. A place where meritocracy reigns and FAIRTRADE exists. Where artists can earn a living, if they are talented, from their art, not barista skills nurtured at the local Starbucks.
Wind forward to today and the revolution is well under way. Nearly 1,500 talented, emerging artists from all over the world have joined b-uncut. They work and hang in its virtual studios – where the rent is free and access is open (so long as they are real artists and supporters of the movement). Within these virtual studio walls they create and share paintings, sculpture, graffiti, photographs, videos, poems, writings and more. They’re styles cover conceptual art, abstract art, surrealism, pop, street, realism, pointillism, performance, photography, video and much, much more. They have produced and loaded nearly 25,000 artworks at b-uncut’s studios in just 2 years!
They upload finished works and works in progress. They share their notes, sketches and musings. The 1,500 studios rock! The artists are alive. They critique each other and have produced an invaluable peer review and rating system – something that artists have lacked since the beginning of time. They huddle in specialist groups and learn online. They teach one other, promote each other and look out for each other. Today over 100 new artists join b-uncut every month. It’s growing – they’re good and the place buzzes.
Together these extraordinary artists decided to go one step further. Six months ago they built their very own art marketplace. First they constructed a Web based Gallery – the b-uncut Gallery. It already hosts around 60 of the more commercially minded artists and takes the concept of Web gallery to a whole new dimension. Walk into its 3D like gallery rooms and queue up for openings. Visit their cutting edge, stunningly curated digital exhibitions. On the way out drop by the museum store. Entry is free for everyone, 24 hours a day. You just need Internet access and a smartphone, PC, laptop or library. Next time you want to go to a contemporary art show do it from your arm chair.
If you like what you see you can buy some of their art at the gallery or direct from the artists using b-uncut’s revolutionary artist commissioning system. You rest assured that the artists pocket more of the receipts which allows them, in turn, to plow your funds into art supplies, art books and future artworks. I don’t know about you but if I decided to invest in a specific artist and their works I would want to know that they, not middlemen, took the majority of my money and continued to develop their art for my future pleasure.
And you get better prices which is why art buyers and lovers are starting to flock to the b-uncut Galleries and Store in their thousands. They’re buying.
Anyone can visit the artists studios, but, membership is reserved for the artists. They’re privacy is important. You can observe and watch them work, share and learn. But, shhhh, they’re creating. You can also read their blogs, notices, listen to their favorite tunes and watch their videos. You can find out about shows they will be in and go meet them in the flesh. Each month 25,000 art lovers come by b-uncut’s studios to watch the artists work and hang out.
You can read b-uncut’s art magazine and blog. Leading Museums, galleries and critics do. You get the real time, real world, unfiltered news and reviews from the emerging art world. Uncut: b-uncut. Check interviews with artists, exhibition reviews, street snaps, opinion pieces and more.
So you see a new art revolution is afoot. Who said the Web wouldn’t change art. It already has. More than you can ever imagine.
Steve Jobs will surprise the world on Wednesday and remind us what a bunch of numbies we are for not figuring the real Apple Tablet.
Sleek design, wonderful curves and white. It’ll cure all known diseases and includes a couple thousand books. Probably.
What do you think the Apple Tablet will be? Crowdsourcing your wildest opinions here.
Sparxoo, a US research firm focused on innovation and digital strategy, wrote a cool article yesterday on ‘Building the Crowd.’
They talk about 3 leading Crowdsourcing projects including Groupon, Kiva and blur Group. Examples of real businesses building sustainable business models around Crowdsourcing.
‘blur Group takes crowdsourcing to a whole new level — creating powerful crowds consisting of experts and specialists in select fields to produce the best results possible. Essentially, crowds and client projects are curated by the company itself. This subset of crowdsourcing, called select sourcing, gathers together the very best of the best to streamline the process and produce valuable results. blur Group has passionate crowds of entrepreneurs, artists, marketers, designers, writers and geeks.’
To read the full article – click this link.
blurGroup.com Version 3 is live!
Buyer focused, marketplace drive. Faster than ever. Do you need a Crowd?
The western world is still in crisis. Following the financial tsunami of 2008/9 the West faces another emergency. As the dust settles on the economic meltdown it is becoming clear that not only did we strangle our recent start-ups, but there is no capital around for the new ones. Banks are still not lending to new businesses and Venture Capital firms are focusing on later stage investments. There is almost no institutional, early stage, risk capital available but the world needs start-ups now more than ever.
Recent US research reveals that nearly all net hiring across the US in the last 10-15 years came from businesses that were less than 5 years old. Barack Obama and David Cameron have made innovation, aspiration and increased private sector employment central to their election manifestos and government strategies – yet start-ups cannot start without funds. Money that they re-invest in people, technology and innovation.
Following the recent crisis, every sector of business and government could do with innovation – sometimes even disruption. Big business and big government is outdated, bureaucratic and inefficient. The opportunities that await us in the digital world, Web and mobile universe, healthcare sector, clean energy space, financial services industry and beyond are unprecedented. We need start-ups to invent, innovate and lead these changes. Start-ups need capital. In philosophy, we call this a conundrum.
The established routes to capital have been levelled in the recent banking collapse. As a result we need something new. Something that facilitates the breakdown of the barriers between the ever rarer beast, the investor, and his counterpart, the entrepreneur. We need a Web platform that brings together the best entrepreneurs and their ideas with the most relevant early stage investors and angels. It has arrived. Innovatrs, a leading Crowdsourcer of early stage entrepreneurs, has just launched a Web service that sources and introduces entrepreneurs with great ideas to early stage investors. See Innovatrs.com. Crowdsourcing could prove to be the best mechanism for tackling the age old challenge of how entrepreneurs find quality angels and vice versa.
Innovatrs sources and develops entrepreneurs. The innovatrs crowd is approaching 500 early stage entrepreneurs from around the world and they attract 5 new entrepreneurs per day. Today, Innovatrs added a novel, early stage, introduction and matching system for investors. They are calling all angels to Innovatrs.com. Hopefully this international service can help address the crisis and funnel deserving start-ups to active, early stage investors. There are plenty of both still around, but they require an efficient, universal platform to unite them. If it works a paradigm shift in start-up investing could unfold. It is sorely needed.
Tina Brown, over at The Daily Beast, wrote a powerful if somewhat negative article last year about ‘The Gig Economy’.
This followed research they did which revealed that nearly a third of Americans do multiple gigs or freelance jobs. It seems that the days of full, dependable, monogamous employment are over – at least for the foreseeable future.
The question is – is this merely a byproduct of the great recession of 2008/9 or something more profound? Tina Brown, who I guess has never been a Gig worker herself, focused heavily on the dark side of the Gig Economy and freelance movement (for the well to do). She perhaps missed the ‘opportunity’.
The opportunity enshrined in the Gig/Freelance Economy is freedom of the individual - making it an important long term trend – not just a short term, depression based hiccup. A growing number of professionals and creatives from all over the world continue to set themselves free from corporate straightjackets to embrace and develop the Gig Economy. ‘Cos they believe in it.
At the same time organizations like blur Group make Gigging a sustainable reality by Crowdsourcing independents and freelancers into virtual (Gig) Crowds/organizations, providing them with peers and helping them find work so that they can enjoy not just the hardships of going out on their own, but ever more of the benefits.
Are you a part of The Gig Economy?
Sparxoo, a cool US social media blog, published an interview today with Phil at blur Group on the future of Crowdsourcing.
blur Designs, the leading, international Crowdsourced design agency is expanding now that it has nearly 1,000 top designers worldwide.
Check them at the all new blur-Designs.com. ‘Need a Designer?’
The b-uncut Store is doing for the art world what Loudclothing.com does for the music industry (which is why EMI bought them yesterday!).
And art lovers are buying in, snapping up the latest contemporary art accessories - t-shirts, posters, coasters, mousepads and more.
Here’s a few we like. Go to the b-uncut Store today and support emerging artists – its FAIRTRADE for artists.
blur Marketing has just launched the all new, dancing and singing blur-Marketing.com.
Check in. ‘Need a (marketing) campaign?’
The year end brings a string of pundit perspectives and tips for 2010. We thought we would look out a bit further and try and describe what your world will look like 10 years from now.
Here goes. Its 14th December 2019.
We will have found cures for most forms of cancer – oh, and the common cold. But, pandemics will be on the increase. AIDS drugs will work 99 times out of 100. Global warming will not be a debate but a fact. The Western world will no longer be in denial. Every major economy will have stringent carbon reduction policies and flood prevention infrastructure and measures in place.
The world will have 5 superpowers: China, India, Europe, Russia and America. Nikolas Sarkozy will be President of Europe and Sarah Palin President of the US. America’s power and influence will continue to be on the decrease. Iraq will be a tentative democracy with tens of thousands of US troops stationed there. Afghanistan will be back in full scale civil war. All American troops will have withdrawn.
Osama Bin Laden will be alive and dangerous. Iran and North Korea will still be defying the superpowers and continuing their nuclear development.
South American and South East Asian countries will continue to unite under regional unions similar to the European Union. They will be on a clear path to economic and political union, beyond trading blocks. European Union leaders will be democratically elected and the EU will look and behave more like the USA.
The second decade of the 21st Century will have seen no new major wars but the usual handful of terrorist attacks including on US and EU soil.
The media landscape will look profoundly different. Newspaper presses will be largely defunct and magazine stands a thing of the past. The new media conglomerates will be Microsoft, Google, Apple and Facebook. Top blogs will be as powerful as the remaining, leading newspapers. All magazines will be online – some also appearing in paper.
TV, movies and video in general will be distributed over the Web. Subscription and free ad models will both exist. Micro payments will thrive. Music and eReader devices will be things of the past overtaken by full media smartphones, tablets and Netbooks. Apple will still have less than 20% of the US market for such devices except for the smartphone.
The mobile phone market will be the smartphone particularly in the Western world. Apple, Blackberry and Google will dominate. Microsoft or Nokia will own Blackberry.
Web 3.0 will be nearing its conclusion. Websites will be clusters of Web apps. Every Website will ask ‘what do you want to do today?’ – no longer what we need to tell you. Social media and the ‘Social’ Web will be givens. Facebook will be the way we communicate and stay in touch. It will be the worlds telephone directory. Facebook will own Twitter. Microsoft will own Linkedin.
The semantic Web will be reality. Everything will exist in the Cloud, including large corporate systems. SME’s will use Google Apps and large corporations will hang onto Microsoft. Software will be services and Freemium the globally established consumer and SME model.
Everyone will advertise on the 3D Web. Video will be as common as the written word and Crowdsourcing will be mainstream. Desktop PC’s and TV’s will have converged. All hardware providers will manufacture single devices. Working from home and freelancing will be the new norm – and the only ‘cool’. Websites that manage and monetize freelancers and independents in giant product/services marketplaces will be industry leaders.
‘Designers’ will make up 50% of the worlds workforce. Top geeks will hold as much celebrity power as any film star, sport pro or band. Every business will be on the Web first and in other places second. There will be no debate about offline versus online. Everything will be digital. Physical events and gigs will be more popular then ever and drive increasing ticket sales.
Cameras will be embedded everywhere. They will produce still and video – automatically uploading images and video to the Web where they will then be edited and released on the move and on the fly. 3D will be mainstream across every hardware device including the smartphone. Computer graphics will drive all movie making. Avatars will be indistinguishable from real world humans.
Robots will be powerful and cost effective alternative service providers in the home and car. They will replace cleaners, shop store workers, manufacturing staff and fast food service staff. A third of all cars sold in the West will be electric and solar panels will power a fast growing minority of homes and commercial buildings. Wind and wave power will be niche and nuclear power will have returned.
Google will be the new Microsoft, Microsoft the new IBM and IBM the new GE. They will all be challenged by the next ‘Google’. Steve Jobs will be running Apple and still running circles round his competition. Companies less than 5 years old with fewer than 50 employees will account for all net hiring in developed countries. Their core assets will be their IP and people. Digital their only reality – the Web their primary means of doing business. Innovation their sole mantra. Small truly cool.
Entrepreneurs and ‘artists’ will be king. Big company CEO’s and big banks will be heard less. Big business will be utility. Small businesses will unite over the Web and compete effectively with the Goliaths. Agencies will be things of the past – they will get overtaken by managed marketplaces of creative independents whether they be designers, musicians, writers or even software developers. Almost all forms of innovation will start in the digital domain.
Trips to the moon will be taken up by thousands of wealthy tourists. We will still have no published evidence of life outside earth.
Our planets scarce resources will be ever scarcer. Including oil, water, food and minerals. Hunger will be more widespread. Inflation keener. Organic foods will be replaced by ‘manufactured’ food. Religion will be little changed and just as much a dividing force. Social awareness will be the new ‘Green’.
Hedge funds and boutique investment banks will be the new Wall Street. Derivatives will be just as dangerous and retail banks will be utilities challenged by digital banking and payment systems such as PayPal. Ebay will be broken up to allow the traditional business to merge with Amazon and PayPal to IPO. Mobile phones will replace all landlines and broadband will be everywhere. Everywhere.
Politicians and celebrities will care more about their Web presence than anything else.
The ’smart’ consumer will have more power and freedom than ever before. The world will be more divided than ever between the have’s and have nots. Digital knowledge will divide. Education will be everything and healthcare more cost effective as technology takes over.
Trends will last minutes not years. Multi-tasking essential. Speed everything. Wisdom ‘it’. All will be digitally connected and our relationships outside school will start on the Web. The Web will be our universe and your world. Enjoy it.
Google Goggles brings visual search to a (Android) smartphone near you. Use the camera, take a picture and it will automatically bring you relevant search items.
Shoot that bottle of wine for details on the winery and vintages. Your favorite artwork for info on the artist. A billboard for the latest promo’s and product details.
And think of all the Crowdsourced photos and associated links?
Museum shops at Moma and the Tate do a roaring trade – even in the current climate. People just love having a nifty product with cool art on it. After all who can afford that original Van Gogh these days. The problem is that Museums are hard to get to and only promote dead or celebrity artists. What about tomorrows artists?
b-uncut has the answer. The worlds leading emerging artist network has recently launched an online Museum store for emerging and developing artists.
A place where anyone can go online to buy every day products at every day prices with the coolest next gen art on it. Want that graffiti poster or t-shirt. An abstract mug or mousepad. A photographers clock and coaster. A conceptual artists fridge magnet.
And the real kicker is that whenever you buy a product at the b-uncut Store you know that you’re helping an emerging artist buy their next paint, paintbrush, canvas or spray can. I know where I’ll be shopping these holidays. You?
blur Group is becoming the world leader in focused Crowdsourcing with thousands of creative professionals now joining its crowds. Indeed, over a thousand cool, leading creatives join one of blur’s Crowds every month. By the end of 2010 they will have over 15,000 artists, marketers, designers, writers and entrepreneurs. Why is this important?
It’s because of what these crowds achieve together on the blur platform and under its umbrella. blur artists use Crowdsourcing to operate the worlds leading emerging art marketplace, its designers the worlds largest, most diverse design agency and its marketers the worlds first meta-marketing group. blur Group is also developing the worlds most dynamic entrepreneur network and the newest writer collective.
blur Group uses focused Crowdsourcing to flatten the creative industries, providing a fundamentally better deal for both buyers and producers, by cutting out needless, expensive middle men and middle managers. For too long art dealers, design agencies, marketing firms, publishers and venture investors have been ripping us off by layering cost on cost and providing ‘thin’ value. It’s time for something different.
blur Group changes the value equation with its 21st Century, Web-based collectives (Crowds), that unite and organise ‘independents’ whether they be artists, designers, marketers, writers or entrepreneurs and together bring the products and services that we want, at the prices we need – from the worlds best talent. All that was lacking was a global entity to organise them – while buyers require a single, trusted party to deal with; blur Group.
blur Crowds (collectives) of creatives are becoming so large and effective that today they challenge the establishment and compete with the big guys. Clients and buyers are lining up to work with and buy from these talent clouds, gaining access to their products and services more easily and cost effectively than ever before, while remaining comfortable in the knowledge that more of the money spent goes direct to the creative talent. A kinda FAIRTRADE for the creative industries. Try it for yourself.
So many talented people have joined our Crowds in the last few weeks and months that we thought we should take a few minutes out to publically welcome everyone and remind us what we are trying to achieve together.
In short blur Crowds are about the ‘power of many’. With nearly a thousand new members joining our Crowds every month.
The power of thousands of individuals coming together to make a difference. Uniting to change our universe more than if they tried to do it on their own.
Together gaining greater exposure, winning larger projects and attracting more attention – by collaborating. Loads of Davids taking on Goliaths. The Goliath’s of the art world, design universe, marketing industry, media sector and innovation space.
Crowds multiplying and competing by spreading the word together, advising and supporting each other, attracting buyers – creating with one another. Learning together. Under one blur roof with a common brand and unified vision. Ensuring a better deal for all. Both Crowd members and customers.
One voice getting heard ‘loud and clear’. Feel free to get involved – join the relevant blur Crowd today if you’re an artist, digital marketer, designer, entrepreneur or writer.
Together we make a difference.
Leading UK mobile company, O2 has just launched Giffgaff -- the worlds first crowdsourced, SIM only, mobile phone operator (MVNO).
Customer service, marketing and adverstising is all delivered by the crowd (volunteer consumers) allowing them to reduce costs and offer cheaper mobile services. It’s the future!
And who said video wasn’t the future of the Web.
YouTube ads point to a future of viral video -- dismantling traditional network TV mechanisms. Watch.
