Idea Bounty

idea bounty redbull

Idea Bounty is a crowd sourcing site that pays creatives for their ideas, (one creative for one idea). The latest bounty on their site is for RedBull, satisfy the creative brief with a good idea and get $5k.

www.ideabounty.com

Idea Bounty has a great description of the traditional agency relationship.

“The traditional model for purchasing creative output (in the form of creative expertise, Ideas and ultimately communication platforms) has dictated that the client (the person with the problem) pay based on how many people and hours have been used in creating the end product. So it’s rare that a budget allows more than two or three resources to be allocated to solving a brief.”

And yet, I believe they sell the ideation process short with this.

“The Ideas you submit will only be visible to you and the client so you don’t have to fret about anyone ‘borrowing’ your brilliant Ideas. If your Idea is used by one of our clients you will receive the cash reward (Bounty) on offer - ‘YOUR work, YOUR reward‘.”

For the most part, idea bounty has potential to be an excellent opportunity for companies to get a breadth of individual ideas. And possibly harness an internal team to sharpen things further. The second part, the part I’m not completely sold on, is that ideas are an individual sport. With a utility like idea bounty (everyone for themselves) I see why this is the outcome - its similar to LinkedIn answers and the best answer. But in reality ideas are shaped, facilitated, ‘borrowed’, collective, and collaborative.

For some idea bounty will be a great opportunity; spend an hour or so brainstorming, drop in your idea and earn $5k! (Who knows, I might even take a shot here and there). But, I’m an idealist and believe that great ideas aren’t developed in a vacuum. The best ideas are shaped with coworkers, the client, the customer, friends, family etc. Now, if you could somehow harness this team of people online and offline that’d be a winning combination

At any rate good luck idea bounty hunters!

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Idea Bounty,” an entry on Justin Powell | Interaction Design and Digital Strategy's blog

Published:: 03.11.09 / 11am

Category:: Advertising, Collaboration, Ideas, Innovation, Interaction Design, Strategy, Technology, Traditional

About

Justin Powell provides interaction design and digital strategy services in Kansas City. He is currently pursuing a MA Interaction Design from the University of Kansas. Justin enjoys solving complex business problems with design thinking methods. A portfolio sample of his work can be found at www.justinpowelldesign.com.

Matt (@ideabounty) 03.12.09 / 5am

Hi Justin,

Thanks so much for the mention. I’m in total agreement with your take on the formation of ideas (the craft of ideas). We’ve had a few entries from small design /creative shops and its great to see that happening. We do however hope to formalise a collaberation option in the future where creatives can network and bounce ideas around within the legal protection the site offers. Happy to discuss further- and appreciate your constructive feedback.
Matt / ideas guy / idea bounty

justin 03.12.09 / 2pm

Thats great Matt, I figured you all had a more rounded philosophy on the craft of ides. The ‘idea in a vacuum’ is more a product of the space, and the restrictions of an online tool. Although people could certainly collaborate outside the space in teams like you implied.

I’ve seen a couple collaborative tools online. Kluster had a great philosophy and model at launch… the reward system and collaboration of ideas got a little tricky. They’ve since retooled their application with a subscription model and a sliding scale of influence and criteria.

On the graphic side of things there are tools like crowdspring where a simple brief is posted and designers upload mock-ups. Its like an open competition for solutions.

At Two West we’ve been working on a collaborative and collective model - using an online collective space to capture ideas and a physical space for idea jams and problem solving with clients and internal teams. Its really a fun model, one that probably can’t exist completely online.

Good luck on your future iterations. It really is a great concept, just challenging to perfect completely online I’m sure.

Matt (@ideabounty) 03.13.09 / 7am

Will definately have a look into Kluster again - could be a useful application(s) to include in our next steps perhaps a voting on creative direction for teams ?

Scott Bower 03.15.09 / 1pm

I think this model is a bit better than the business that is doing the exact same thing, but with building code and applications. These are just ideas, and not, source code that suffers form all sorts of QA issues, especially when you are building enterprise applications and getting code drops from Chinese developers which may be worming things. Instead of hiring consultants and freelancers, so goes the argument, lets get underground talent from around the world.

For emerging markets and economically distressed areas around the world, I see this as a positive resource because it engages the target market directly with the brand/company with the proposal.

However, just like everything else that is becoming a commodity, the downside is that they are aggregating alot of ideas that they do not have to pay for under the guise of a contest. This all started with a snowboard company back in the late 90s, this idea.

Some might call this this Economic Rape or exploitation. For a poor kid in rural Poland with an internet connection, fine. Great opportunity. This is all advertising and marketing, no harm done. You gave him a shot a $3k, hopefully he didn’t spend anytime on it.

But when it comes to getting innovation for free, with minimal investment, from unknown entities all over the world, yeah… good luck with that. You get what you pay for. This is the same tired debate that I deal with in different flavors everyday in the business world.

I am starting a religion though, and I could see alot of ways I could use this service to spread my own personal ideas and agenda into cities like Rio, with contest money. That is where the real power of a service like this lies.

Idea Bounty

About this entry

4 Comments

Have your say

About

Recent

Delicious