Here are some excerpts from the article, which provide a neat summary of some of my thinking on the space.

It’s a fallacy to think of networking as a sales tool. Firstly, it’s not. Secondly, it might instead be one of the defining sources of value in your business. Business strategist Ross Dawson, author of the (free and highly comprehensible) Future of Work Framework explains how.

“Thanks to technology, we can work anywhere. Social trends, meanwhile, show that workers have higher expectations of their jobs, workplaces and career options. The freelance economy is booming and corporate structures are flattening.

The structure of business is therefore changing to what I would describe as a ‘modular’ economy, where the relevant entity of value creation becomes smaller and smaller – it’s no longer the organisation that is the primary vehicle for value creation, it’s often the individual.”

In this sense, large companies are often a highly liquid collection of motivated individuals; many of whom will coalesce for only weeks at a time on any one project. There is no pyramid of power. If the concept of ‘a job for life’ disappeared in the 1970s-80s, technology in the 2000s is allowing the talent market to become completely granular, with skills available on demand and businesses operating in as lean and flexible a way as possible.

This is obviously great news for small businesses, who (red tape willing…) will have unprecedented access to corporate clients. But Dawson’s point is more subtle: whether you’re a freelance, a small business or an employee in a larger organisation, your network will be crucial to your very value.

“Two things will make a difference”, he says. “Firstly, your specialist expertise. If you don’t have world-class capabilities, then you’re a commodity. You need to become an expert in your field and put constant effort into learning to stay at the top of your game.

“But secondly, your value in such a fluid world where we move from project to project or job to job will be based on the depth of your connections and the strength of those relationships.

So whilst on the one hand we need to be specialists, experts at something very specific; the corollary of that is that we have to be better at collaboration. This is a more interdependent world than ever before, so customers are looking to work with people who are good at collaborating and bring a network of connections with them.”

The article goes on to explore attitudes to intellectual property and information sharing in networks.

“We need to shift from protecting things by default to being open by default”, says Dawson. “Neither approach is any harder or easier: you just need to make some decisions about how you operate. Of course you need to protect any intellectual property in your business; but if you start with an open mentality, you have a tremendous advantage.”

Crowdsourcing, approached the right way, can be a very powerful manifestation of high-value networks, but it does require providing context to the people you work with.

There is a logical limit to outsourcing, and Dawson says it comes down to ‘context’. Casual, on-demand labour exists without context. That’s why, for example, something as simple as crowdsourced logo design can go horribly wrong: without knowing the soul of a business and its strategy, it’s pretty hit-and-miss to design its brand.

“Again, that context is about strength of relationships”, he says. “It’s why we still have our favourite suppliers or contacts whose advice we trust. When context is less important, we can outsource. And business will certainly become more distributed; it’s an inexorable force. But you can’t outsource trust, competence or brand values.”

It is fantastic to see what Malaysia is doing. Digital Malaysia is the government agency tasked with developing Malaysia as a digital nation towards 2020. One of its 8 current major initiatives is in using crowdsourcing to give work and opportunities to the least advantaged 40% of the population.

The overall strategic framework is to focus on both competitiveness and social equity and inclusiveness.  This has lead to the idea of what they call ‘microsourcing’ as a way of providing incremental revenue to the poor.  

The target is households of incomes less than RM2,300 (US$750) per month, including homemakers, retirees, unemployed,disabled, prison inmates

Connectivity in Malaysia is good, There is 82% broadband penetration in populated areas, and mobile penetration is very high at over 128%. The Malaysian government is already close to its initial target of distributing 1 million netbooks to disadvantaged children and has increased its target to 2.5 million computers distributed.

The target is to build 9 platforms generating $2.2 billion (US$700 million) in additional gross national income by 2020. Existing platforms include YourPartTime.com, which has over 80,000 freelancers, MyKerja, and EduSource.

There is already a well-developed strategy for how these crowdsourcing initiatives will develop. One thrust is the development of platforms that will link workers and client organizations. Another is providing the connectivty and education for workers to participate in distributed work. Yet it also requires clients to recognize the possibilities.

Today’s National Crowdsourcing Conference in Kuala Lumpur was organized primarily to educate the business sector on what they can gain from the use of crowd workers. This is certainly the beginning of a long journey in building demand as well as supply in creating a true two-sided market.

One of the most interesting aspects of Malaysia’s initiatives is that it sees an opportunity for demand and supply for crowd work to be within the same country. Malaysia is in many ways a developed knowledge-based economy, yet there are many who are not yet participating fully. 

There are many advantages to having common culture and language between clients and workers, and many tasks that require local knowledge or presence. Well-developed domestic crowd platforms can also take on global clients and workers, but there is absolutely an opportunity to begin with a domestic market. One of the most important reasons to do so is social development. 

During question time after my keynote I pointed to the risks of the global polarization of the value work, and to what we can do to mitigate that. Crowdsourcing initiatives that are designed from the ground up from a social perspective, such as Samasource and CloudFactory can make provide opportunities to the disadvantaged, equalizing the distribution of wealth and opportunity in a highly connected world.

These are vital initiatives, and I look forward to seeing how the Malaysian crowdsourcing landscape develops.

At the media event announcing the program at ANZ’s headquarters this morning I spoke about the future of banking, and ANZ Australia CEO Phil Chronican shared ANZ’s initiatives.

I will try to write more later about what I covered in my presentation. For now here are some excerpts from ANZ’s press release on some of the very interesting statistics from a survey performed by ANZ for the launch, together with some of my comments.

Seventy-nine per cent of Australians said they would be comfortable with fingerprint technology one day replacing their banking PIN and more than one third of Australians would prefer to live in a cashless world according to a new survey released today.1

The Newspoll survey commissioned by ANZ also found Baby Boomers are giving younger generations a run for their money, with nearly three quarters of those aged 50-64 more likely to use digital technology over a bank branch for day-to-day banking transactions.

Australians have adopted digital habits for most of their banking needs and will increasingly look to technology to make their financial lives easier in the future, with the survey finding:

• Not surprisingly 88 per cent of people aged 18 – 34 prefer to use digital technology over a bank branch for day-to-day transactions but their Mums and Dads weren’t far behind at 75 per cent;
• 38 per cent of Australians would prefer to live in a world where they didn’t need to carry cash;
• 40 per cent of people even accepted the idea of one day outsourcing their finances to a digital personal assistant – an intelligent computer program which makes financial decisions and moves money between accounts on your behalf;
• 49 per cent of 18 -34 year olds like the idea of a digital personal assistant but with only 30 per cent of Baby Boomers indicating they would be likely to use the technology;
• 67 per cent of Australians would be comfortable using a machine that scans your eye to verify identification in place of a pin; and
• 73 per cent of people find it inconvenient when small businesses don’t accept cards and only cash, with 82 per cent of 18-34 year olds finding cash only policies the most frustrating.

The comprehensive survey reveals that while we are embracing many aspects of new technology, Australians still want face-to-face interaction for life’s “big ticket” items. More than twice as many Australians said they would prefer to apply for a loan (62 per cent) or get mortgage advice (64 per cent) in a bank branch than by using digital technology.

Futurist Ross Dawson said the survey shows Australians are willing to lead the way in the uptake of this kind of technology but it will be up to the banks to respond.

“Cash could be on the way out and it’s realistic to imagine a world in which we carry no notes or coins, or even credit or debit cards,” Mr Dawson said.

“Before long we may use our fingerprints or even retina scans to make payments. Australians have shown they are comfortable with biometric identification, because it combines convenience with security.

“As banks make it easier to make and receive payments through devices such as smart phones, a new wave of entrepreneurs and jobs will be enabled. Pop-up stores will tap fleeting fashion trends and revitalise main streets, personal services will be available wherever is most convenient to consumers, and great ideas will garner contributions.

“We have already learned to tell our smart phones what we want with technologies like Apple’s Siri, so it may not be that long before we are relying on a personal digital assistant like Siri to help us with banking transactions such as moving funds or making payments, and even potentially choosing investments on our behalf,” Mr Dawson said.

For more details here is the full press release and here is more information on ANZ’s announcements.

As awareness of crowdsourcing increases, there is a rapidly increasing appetite for learning how to do it well.

Yesterday I spoke at the City of Sydney’s Let’s Talk Business event on Outsourcing: Costs Down + Revenues Up, alongside highly experienced executives such as Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com and Wai Hong Fong, CEO of OzHut.

It was a sell-out audience, and the question session following our presentations showed a strong eagerness to learn about how to use crowdsourcing effectively.

I wrote Getting Results From Crowds because using crowdsourcing well is not as easy as it may seem. There are many who get turned off by bad initial experiences, just because they didn’t approach it the right way.

A combination of increasing awareness of crowdsourcing, together with the realization that it is not always straightforward to get good outcomes, is leading to a real and rapidly growing appetite for learning how to crowdsource well.

Our global series of crowdsourcing workshops, starting on April 16 with two half-day crowdsourcing workshops in Sydney, and followed shortly after by sessions in locations including Cologne, London, Paris, and other cities are attracting strong interest.

A diverse group including small business owners, entrepreneurs, creative agency executives, and corporate innovation executives are joining us at the workshops. In addition to the pragmatic approaches and guidelines we will cover, one of the important outcomes of the workshops will be identifying what people want and need to learn, and the best ways to help people gain the relevant experience and insights.

We’ll be sharing what we learn along the way.

Yesterday I gave three presentations, and I’d love to write (at least) a full blog post about what we covered for each one. However that’s not possible, so I’ll just share quick thoughts about each topic and what I will try to write more about later.

The day started by giving the keynote at a Consumerization of IT event run by CIO Magazine, supported by HP and Microsoft.

My topic was The Future of IT Consumerization. I have tried to find a better term than Consumerization of IT but so far have been unsuccessful, as it does capture what is perhaps the most central theme in how enterprise technology is shifting today. In many ways the drive to cloud and big data is being fueled by consumerized technologies.

As we shift to an economy of individuals, the primary locus of technology is moving from organizations to people. The challenges for CIOs and IT departments of these changes are enormous. Yet it would be a massive mistake to ignore these forces and try to lock-down technology. From now on, users will drive enterprise technology.

At lunch I presented on a webinar on Crowdsourcing: how your SME can benefit from the outsourcing boom, run by Business Spectator and supported by Amex.

My focus in this webinar was on what small and mid-sized businesses need to know about crowdsourcing. I first provided an overview of the space, drawing on our Crowdsourcing Landscape, then provided a highly condensed version of the recommendations from Getting Results From Crowds on how to use service marketplaces. The diversity of crowdsourcing can easily be confusing, so for this audience the focus was on helping them grasp the possibilities and first steps to success.

During the night my time I presented to Ketchum PR’s Global Media Network on Tapping the Power of Crowdsourcing for PR.

I have been an advisor to the Global Media Network for some time, among other activities presenting the highly successful Tapping the Power of Mobile webinar series last year.

A key focus for me over at least the next six months will be crowdsourcing for creative agencies. This is a very important space that will be central to the coming shift in creative professions. However I think this could be particularly pointed in PR. PR agencies are arguably more experienced than the other marketing domains in engaging large groups, so it would seem natural to turn their capabilities to the possibilities of crowdsourcing. As it happens Ketchum has already launched a very interesting initiative called MindFire, which taps a pool of bright college students for original ideas for its clients. I will definitely be sharing more of my thoughts on content on crowdsourcing for creative agencies including PR in coming months.

I will be shortly launching a more complete review of all the public visual frameworks I’ve created. For now, here is a review of the public frameworks I’ve created this year.

Success in a Connected World

I have used this in many keynotes and workshops this year to help individuals and small to mid-sized businesses to work out what they need to do succeed in a connected world, usually going into detail on the specific tools they can use in each area.

Click on the image for full size

The Transformation of Business

I have applied this framework in a variety of situations, including as the foundation of my keynote at the Australian Institute of Company Directors conference in Beijing in May among other keynotes, and in numerous executive strategy sessions as a starting point for identifying implications and strategies of change. Also see the Prezi of the Transformation of Business, though note that I use different examples depending on the audience.

Click on the image for full-size pdf

The Transformation of Government

I created the Transformation of Government framework as I am being increasingly drawn into the government sphere. While the fundamental structure and issues that affect business also impact government, some adaptation is required, as in the visual below. I first presented this as the opening keynote of the Institute of Public Administrators Australia conference. See the Prezi of the Transformation of Government here.

The Transformation of Government framework (click on image for full-size pdf)

Crowdsourcing Landscape v2

Since the launch of our Crowdsourcing Landscape v1 I have intended to provide an update. I created a Crowdsourcing Landscape v2 to accompany our Getting Results From Crowds book, as below, moving from 14 categories to 22 categories, clustered into 8 business models.

Click on the image to download full-size pdf

Crowd Business Models framework

The Crowd Business Models framework shows the 8 major crowdsourcing business models, as described in more detail in Chapter 22 of Getting Results From Crowds.

Click on the image to download the complete framework as pdf

Click on the image to download the complete framework as pdf

Following the excellent Freelancer.com interview, below is the interview with BigCommerce’s founders. They recently raised US$15 million from US VC firm General Catalyst Partners in their first external funding round since they were founded.

The interview brings out the reasons for their success: great products and an intense focus on marketing. Their story offers great lessons for any online business.

Here are a few of the insights they shared in the interview:

* You can get raving fans for small business and you can make a bigger impact than with big business
* Their initial success was based on having an easy-to-use product supported by many marketing channels
* Email provides very cost-effective marketing – they would build their email list by providing very useful educational content for their customers, and only occasionally sending promotions which people on the email list were very receptive to
* They bought a video camera, a whiteboard, and markers, posted 4 minute videos on YouTube every few days, and have generated 800,000 views
* In addition to link-building they focused on providing educational information, and giving away free tools and free products
* They are big on Google AdWords, which drives a lot of their traffic
* They starting with a lot of keyword research, initially guessing and then refining and tweaking based on data on who is buying
* Their shopping cart gathered 10,000 customers in the first 18 months, rapidly iterating by taking and applying feedback from customers, quickly creating a mature, well-featured product
* They created their ‘F-commerce’ tool to sell on Facebook as they saw that was where online business was going

Below is an example of one of BigCommerce’s successful tutorials, on how to rank on long tail searches on Google.

Project Startup uses the classic crowdfunding model used by Kickstarter, Indie GoGo, Sellaband and other crowdfunding platforms for funding creative projects, in which funders are rewarded by receiving products, services, preferential treatment, and feeling good, but no equity.

I have written many times about the limits on equity crowdfunding and what goes beyond, and there is a detailed chapter on equity crowdfunding in my forthcoming book on effective approaches to crowdsourcing.

We discussed the legislation in most developed countries that forbids small equity investments in private companies. Then an idea came to me about how to go about this. I can’t see that I’ll be able to do this myself for the foreseeable future, given our existing project schedule, so I’d like to throw it out there as a gift for whoever would like to take it and do it.

Most of the discussion around equity crowdfunding in the US is about a $100 limit on investments. In general for equity investments in startups, you expect either to do well, or to lose your money. There isn’t often a middle path. If you have invested $1 million in a startup, you might want to recover some of it if you can. However it doesn’t really matter for smaller investments. Similarly, with a smaller investment, gains of 10-20% are meaningless. It is only worth doing if you make multiples on your investment. And with a small stake, the voting participation that equity gives is negligible.

As such, a way to avoid dealing with securities legislation is not having equity, but creating a vehicle that gives you a return if things go really well. There is actually no good reason for small investments in startups to take the form of equity.

For example, if you liked a startup, you could place a $100 bet at 10-1 odds that it will have an exit of over $5 million within 5 years. If that doesn’t happen, you lose your $100, which is a very likely outcome from equity investment in any case. If it does well, then you get a return of $1,000.

Of course, there are many issues that need to be resolved. Rather than securities legislation, you need to deal with gambling legislation in your jurisdiction. You need to ensure that the interests of the major equity holders are aligned with the betters, in achieving the defined success criteria rather than trying to avoid them. You need to determine which entity is paying the funds out, and the legal triggers for that.

However there is no reason these issues can’t be dealt with more easily than waiting for securities legislation to change. This structure could provide a real source of funding for startups that can get enough people excited and wanting to participate in its potential success.

So, if you think it’s a good idea, do it! And let me know how you go.

[UPDATE:] It seems the structure is not immediately apparent to all, so a further explanation:
* Company needs money to get started
* It asks lots of people to give them small amounts of money e.g. $100, $1000
* The company promises to pay the funders a multiple of their funds (for example 10x) if there is a trigger event which results in them having the money to pay out the funders (for example sale of company for an amount exceeding $5 million within 5 years)
* If that trigger event does not happen, funders receive no return
What is different from a classic bet is that both funders and company want the same thing to happen. The details of the structure need to ensure that their interests are aligned in achieving the payout (e.g. distribution to managers/ investors). However the key is that the return is only achieved if there is the money available to pay back.
Of course there can then be variations on the theme, such as multiple payback levels, e.g. 100x payout if the sale is for $50 million or more.

Below are the videos of the interview I did with Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com, together with some notes from what he said.

* “I used the site once, and like it so much I bought it”
* After buying GetaFreelancer.com Matt Barrie developed the
* It is in the top 300 websites in the world, with 3 million users, with freelancers making over $100 million
* “The first million dollars is the hardest” but it has now taken a life of its own
* Go for quality, not price, look for good feedback, examine their portfolio, converse before engaging freelancers, and use the milestone system

* It’s never been a better time to start an online business. Operating systems, databases, voice over IP and much more are free. Internet connections, domains, ads on Google and more are cheap
* You don’t need to be technical to start an online business – you can hire someone to do it
* Ideas are a dime a dozen, it’s all about execution
* It takes initiative and drive, getting started and continuing to improve, having the passion to do it
* Create a ‘minimum viable product’, ship early and ship often, and get feedback from customers

I will shortly share the interview with BigCommerce, which also has great insights.

The program starts with an interview with me, after which I go on to interview two of Australia’s top online businesses: Freelancer.com and BigCommerce on their secrets of success.

The program has been excerpted in online videos. The kickoff interview is below. I will post videos from the other interviews shortly.

Here are some snapshots of what I cover in the interview:

* Online business is driving our world: not only is more business being done online, but almost all decisions are supported by online research
* While consumers are adopting online business as never before, most businesses are not nearly as engaged as they need to be
* Every business needs to be online, understand where their customers are spending time, build their presence in those spaces, share valuable information, express their personality, and develop powerful relationships
* We cannot stop information we don’t like getting out, but we can make the story we want to tell more visible than other information
* In the future we will share even more than today, and communities will be more and more central to how business is done
* Crowdsourcing is one of the biggest trends in business, providing companies with resources to do many of the tasks that drive their success