by YannigRoth

What The European Commission’s Reports Say About The Future Of Crowdsourcing

business innovation observatory crowdsourcing

The European Commission has asked PwC to write a series of reports and case studies about innovative businesses and business models, which you can find on Business Innovation Observatory. Two of these reports (Crowdsourced Manufacturing and Customer Incentives and Involvement) – based on research conducted by PwC’s consultants and interviews with CEOs and founders of innovative companies like Shapeways, Quirky or eYeka – talk about the trend of crowdsourcing, outline this trend’s drivers and obstacles, and formulate policy recommendations pertaining its development. Both prove to be very insightful when it comes to the future of crowdsourcing. Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

Réflexions Sur Un Aspect Juridique Du Crowdsourcing Créatif

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Aujourd’hui, à la conférence TIC – Information et Stratégie de Nïmes, nous présentons notre papier “Travail ou pas? L’autonomie des participants au crowdsourcing et ses implications,” co-écrit avec le Professeur Jean-François Lemoine de l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne et l’ESSCA Ecole de Management, et Eric Favreau, juriste chez eYeka. En voici un résumé sur le Journal Du Net, et surtout une riche discussion (en dessous). Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

My Favorite Readings In September: Advertising Contests, Spoiler-Proof TV Shows & Career-Boosting PhD’s

paris abandonned railway

Click to see “21 Photos Of Nature Winning The Battle Against Civilization.” Here: Paris  (boredpanda.com)

Here are my favorite couple of articles and links of the month of September. The first one is not an article but a whole website, curated by a woman whose mother-in-law participated in advertising contests in the 40’s and 50’s, where she shares all the memorabilia of this creative contest activity. A great website to look at, especially if you are interested, like me, in creative contests.

The other links are related to the link between culture and innovation, culture and creativity, crowdsourcing for advertising and academia – fairly classical topics if you are among the followers of this blog. I hope you enjoy this selection of reads.

Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

« Title Heroes » – The Benefits Of Doctoral Studies To Boost Corporate Careers

titel helden handelblatt karriere artikel

The article in “Karriere” which is a “Handelsblatt” magazine. Illustrations by Anja Stichler

This article is a translation of an article I read in the German magazine Handelsblatt Karriere recently (issue nb 4, year 2014), called “Titel-Helden” (Title Heroes) written by Eva-Maria Hommel. The article addresses the interesting question of working on a PhD early in a corporate career, and I felt it was interesting enough to be shared with an English-speaking audience, beyond the relatively small number of people who speak German in this world. I believe it is an insightful article that shows the German specificity of valuing the PhD beyond academia, which is the case in France or the US, and bridging the gap between both worlds. Note that the translation is an exact translation, which I tried to make as easy to read as possible, just removing a very few passages. Illustrations, links, emphases or bold passages have been added by myself. Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

Discussion With LEGO’s Community Strategist, Yun Mi Antorini

Yun Mi Antorini

LEGO, one of the most creative and loved brands in the world, attributes a big part of its success to its thriving fan community. Almost 10 million Facebook fans, over 180,000 Twitter followers or a 10,000+ member LEGO Ideas community show that the brand and its product have huge traction among kids and adults alike (watch this TED talk to have a short impression of the phenomenon). The company has not only recognized the power of this fanbase, realized how valuable it is, but they actively encourage its development and look for its well-being – from a passive observer to an active promoter.

I’ve already blogged about community management in a crowdsourcing setting, now here’s an interview of LEGO’s “Community Strategist,” Yun Mi Antorini, whose job is – basically- to make that community happy (how cool is that?). Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

How Do Countries’ Cultural Norms Impact Global Creativity? (Paper Forthcoming in @ASQJournal)

The cover of an ASQ issue from June 2012, which I chose only because of the bicycle! (Image via ManagementINK)

The cover of an ASQ issue from 2012, which I chose only because of the bicycle

Here it is, my (our) first publication in a peer-reviewed management journal. We have just received our acceptance letter from Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), a prestigious quarterly journal that publishes the theoretical and empirical papers on organizational studies, for our paper “How Culture Impacts Creativity: Cultural Tightness, Cultural Distance, and Global Creative Work.”

To make it short, the paper looks at the effect of culture (the extent to which countries have strong cultural norms and enforce them strictly) on peoples’ likelihood to participate in, and succeed at, global creative tasks. It advances a new theoretical model, the “Cultural Alignment Model of Global Creativity,” to understand how culture impacts creativity in a global context.

Here’s a bit more about the paper, and about the publication process – which I went through for the first time. Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

Does Crowdsourcing Deliver On Its Promise (For Creatives)?

Video Contest Website Landing Pages

Recently, in a thread of email exchanges with a successful video contest participant who won numerous contests for many prestigious brands, I was struck by this person’s response to my “how are things going?” question. That person replied: “Unfortunately while I wish I had gotten some ‘real’ work all these contests haven’t had any effect on my professional career and I’m still struggling to get work!”

This bugged me, because professional advancement and career opportunities are a big part of the promises of crowdsourcing. My experience and research confirms that many crowd members participate with this in mind (some call it hope labor), so I wanted to know more. “I’m a little bugged by [the fact that he was still looking after all these wins, does it mean that crowdsourcing doesn’t deliver on its promise?” I asked. Here’s the response from the filmmaker, and a call for discussion.

Continue reading →