iPhone or Aston Martin?

A recent survey by CoolBrands revealed that Apple’s iPhone is now more desirable than an Aston Martin! A closer look at the list tells the bigger story about Apple’s brand, they took 3 spots out of the top 5! Apples dominance is unsurprising – consumers are way too happy to queue for the latest gadget. What is surprising however is another survey by SuperBrands (same company as CoolBrands) which reveals that Microsoft are the top super brand, whilst Apple are down in 9th. But with cloud computing and applications on-line maybe we’ll see MacBooks on the list next year further boosting Apple’s position.

Whichever way you look at it Apple’s brand is their most prized asset, which proves that getting your brand right has to be a leading priority.

The Future of Fairtrade

The definition of Fairtrade is clear: “Fairtrade is a strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Its purpose is to create opportunities for producers and workers who have been economically disadvantaged or marginalized by the conventional trading system. If fair access to markets under better trade conditions would help them to overcome barriers to development, they can join Fairtrade.”

But we believe that the future of Faitrade goes beyond developing countries and includes many other kinds of workers; full time, freelance, part time and including artists, musicians, actors, writers, marketing consultants, designers and more. As a leader in Crowdsourcing we think that it can offer a better deal for most constituents of worker and knowledge producer – and a better contract, one not shackled by the constraints of permanent employ. For instance, b-uncut artists take a commission of 80% when their art is sold through the b-uncut Gallery, not the standard 50% offered by traditional gallery’s.

The Fairtrade movement has done a great deal for farmers and workers in the Third World. Its time to widen the initiative and improve the deal and conditions for all workers, be they creatives, artists, knowledge workers, factory employees or engineers. In the US, UK, France, Japan, Australia, Brazil, India or wherever. Crowdsourced together – unfettered and untethered. That is the future of Fairtrade.

The Future of Crowdsourcing – Small

Crowdsourcing has become an increasingly accepted term with examples bandied about such as Google using the analysis of Web links to crowdsource their search engine, Wikipedia crowdsourcing the planet to build the largest encyclopedia and Threadless crowdsourcing approaching a million people to design t-shirts. But what is the future of crowdsourcing? Well, we think it’s the power of small. We believe that small, niche, highly managed crowds organized in the right way will become virtual organizations. Why not build a marketing agency solely by crowdsourcing and remotely managing marketing professionals/consultants. Why not crowdsource writers and editors to build a next generation publishing company, artists to develop a new generation art market.

The key, we believe, is small, targeted, niche crowds attacking niche issues head on and repeatedly. There will always be a place for big crowds tackling one or two big problems – but this needs to be complemented with specialist crowds attacking specialist issues one after the other much as any agency, research centre or organization does today. The benefit of doing it with a managed crowd instead of legions of full time employees is lower cost, greater flexibility, a more international approach and the greater, larger collective intelligence. Indeed, it may be that the most successful, best managed, niche crowds will become the organization of tomorrow.

Why blur Group is Important

As blur Group gets more of a following we increasingly get asked why what we are doing is important. It is both a fundamental and complex question to answer. I have spent the last ten years building large communities and marketplaces on the Web – consumer facing, business facing and some that mash both up. The thinking until now has been all about how you scale communities and marketplaces – how you reach critical mass. How you monetize the masses.

We believe that the new wave in community building is about the power of small – the beauty of boutique and about quality more than quantity. Our crowds (communities) are small, focused and valuable. We spend more time managing and filtering our communities than recruiting for them. And our recruitment is rifle shot, not scatter gun. Organic, not viral.

But then we have to, because blur Group is a leader in crowdsourcing – and crowdsourcing is all about monetizing the individual and combined outputs of the crowd. Not cashing in on the crowd itself – quite the opposite. We know that quality crowds equal quality outputs and we will only succeed through quality outputs, whether they come from artists or entrepreneurs or marketers. We work tirelessly with our crowds, supported by social media and community platforms, to help them earn a better living and make a bigger difference – whether they be dedicated, part time or freelance.

Some believe we have figured out how to scale services based businesses, others feel that we might have the secret to Web 2.0 marketplaces and some even think we are quietly and innocently changing the way business is done. Us, we just think we are blur, reinventing tomorrow, today.