What will we do with the extraordinary potential of crowd business models?

I was just interviewed by Martin Metzmacher as part of his Netrepreneurs series. The 30 minute video interview is below.

While the broad topic of the conversation was about how to use crowds effectively, Martin focused through the interview on my motivations for what I do. At the end of the interview he asked me to summarize what I felt was most important in what we’d covered.

I believe the idea of crowd business models is an immensely relevant frame today. The nature of business models is rapidly evolving, with the biggest single shift being to the participation of many in value creation.

Today, crowds are an extension of our capabilities, meaning that we are limited by little else than the scope of our imagination. The gap between a vision and its realization is shrinking as never before.

The concept at the heart of this is shared value creation. It is not about trying to get things done for free or very cheaply. The greatest value is in catalyzing the most talented, by allowing them to collaborate and participate in the value they are creating.

So the most important question we must ask, is what will we do with the extraordinary potential of crowd business models?

I’m currently working hard on building out our own crowd business models – there will be a number of announcements coming soon on that front – and I’m really looking forward to discovering others’ innovation in tapping the power of crowds. Let’s make this happen.