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Is crowdsourcing really worth it?
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I’m asking this both on the side of the designers etc. that submit their work, as well as for the people that commission these projects. The question of whether or not people are adequately compensated for their work has plagued the area of crowdsourcing pretty much since it began. I wrote about crowdsourcing projects as a way to use social media to find a job, but admitted myself that is was probably more valuable to build your experience than as a real way of earning money. And crowd-sourcing is now bigger than ever – even the Conservative Party are using it. Whether this is a genuine project or a cheap PR stunt is a whole other blog post 
For the large part, I’m a big believer in crowd-sourcing projects. I think it opens up a lot of doors to designers, photographers etc.. who previously would have found it very difficult to get a real outlet for their work. I think we’ve seen some innovative examples of crowd-sourcing through social media, for example the Plain Lazy tshirt competition. The concept itself is great and helps to create a more equal platform for those who wouldn’t typically have access to commissions. The issue is obviously when you consider the hourly rate for those taking part.
On 99 designs the prize value offered for projects can range from $100 to $600 . If you’re working on a project where you have to turn to something like 99 designs in the first place, it’s doubtful that you’re going to offer top dollar. Let’s face it, you’re probably on 99 designs because budget is a concern.
istockphoto, which allows photographers to upload their photos and earn royalties based on downloads is a similiar example. While not exactly crowd-sourcing it offers everyone a chance to upload their photos and earn money for their work. You just have to take a short quiz and upload 3 examples of your work, which can include photo, flash and video. On the face of it – a win/win situation. People get a chance to purchase royalty free images very cheaply and photographers get a chance to showcase their work and earn some money in the meantime. But how much money? The royalties offered range from €0.24 for an extra small image, to a maximum of €6.72 for an XXXLarge image. The earnings are certainly small, but many might just think – why not? It’s better than having no money for my images. But there are other things to consider here.
Whose work is it, really?
I was talking to Phil O’Kane, a photographer, about whether or not he would put his photos on a site like this. Having been fairly unimpressed with the royalties he would earn, a bigger concern for him was the attribution for his work. It’s important that where Phil is putting his work up external to his own site, for example Flickr, he is able to lead it back there. His brand is important to him, as it should be to anyone who takes pride in that work. With sites like istockphoto, that’s lost. Yours is just another image among the hundreds of others for that keyword and your name isn’t usually behind it. The creative work that you’ve put into that image is being attributed to the site, not to you. Suddenly, the €0.24 seems a lot less attractive.
Is it win-win?
Though much has been said about whether sites such as 99 designs are really fair to those taking part, the actual quality of the work gets a lot less attention. This is a point that Eoghan raised on the Contrast blog, in a really interesting post. In Eoghan’s own words, what you get a lot of the time is ‘complete crap’. So is it even worth considering spending the $100 ? I’ve used crowdsourcing for a few projects myself and I have to say that the majority of the time I was less than impressed. My fault I guess – you get what you pay for. But that’s something that I’ve learned the hard way, having wasted money in the first place. You also have to consider who is commissioning these projects. It is a designers job to design, but it is not the designer (if they are worth their salt!) that is going to turn to these sites. It’s most likely the brand owner, who probably doesn’t really know much about design and is too emotionally close to their brand to issue a decent brief that has much meaning. So then you get a mess, because you don’t really know what it is you’re looking for in the first place. A waste of everyone’s time and your money.
So now we’re faced with the prospect that what, on the surface, seems like a great initiative that serves both parties well, is actually not treating either fairly. The concept is too simple – “pay a small amount to get access to great designers for my project” / “I spend a few hours when I’m not working anyway and could earn myself a bit of money.” Obviously, unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I hope that crowd-sourcing can work, but it needs to be developed further to really benefit both sides and produce fantastic work.
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The crowdsourcing of designs is just one limited form of crowdsourcing, and isn’t a very deep example because of the limited collaboration between participants. I think it is a good way to source ideas from outside your company walls, but it must be tough for the designers to make a dollar and a cent.
The point about it being from outside your company walls is an important one, and one that I should have brought up in the post. The act of extending a task beyond your immediate resource is certainly enlightened and displays a fair amount of forward-thinking. This is what’s so great about crowdsourcing, but,as you mention yourself, the money behind it is simply stopping it from functioning well as a collaborative process.
I would vastly prefer to develop personal working relationships with designers. I’m in a good area for it, San Francisco.
From a time perspective, it’s cheaper to pay good money for a good job than to spend hours and hours filtering lowest bidder results.
The loss of the relationship is interesting. There is a lot that’s lost when the extent of the relationship is a brief developed the one commissioning the project. That is no doubt why so many designs are wide of the mark and of questionable quality. It’s definitely cheap, but there’s no point if you can’t actually use the end result. It can be a huge drain on your own resource of time then.
At The Biracy Project – a crowdfunded + crowdsourced project, we believe that people who participate for what is commonly referred to in the film business as deferrals, should be compensated if the project becomes a success. That’s why we’ve built a crowdsourced platform that issues points to people for their participation, even if they are not the winner of an issued tender for services on our film project. We base our value of work on 60 CDN dollars per hour and then apply units of time that we think people should be able to complete the tasks in. For example: if we ask you to choose between the costume designers red or blue dress you are issued one minutes worth of points, or if we ask you to design a dress in a sketch we might give you 2 hours worth of points but also give a cash prize of 120 CDN dollars to the person who we use. This way people are earning an equitable position in the film that is carved up when the film is released. The more points you have…the more you earn.
great post by the way…
David, this is the first I’ve heard of your project and it sounds like you’re doing it absolutely right. Paying for actual time spent rather than just offering one reward if people are lucky enough to win is a much fairer way to do it and, I’m sure, it has a positive effect on the quality of work you get.
This is truly bringing in external resource, tapping into those people who really know their stuff and expanding your access to specialist knowledge. I’d be interested to hear how many people you have taking part and how much has been paid out so far. Are there current examples of films that have been successfully crowdfunded? A great project – well done.
[...] The key is that you set the payment level yourself and, as I discussed in a post on crowd-sourcing last week, you only get what you pay for, so be fair with the payment levels here. Smartsheet also has the [...]