Hub members and Tim Meuleman and Robert van Meer: 2 entrepreneurs, who wrote a book during their student years, winning this important marketing literature prize: something is going on in the marketing field!
The economy is drastically changing and crowdsourcing is part of the new landscape. Tim and Robert explain why this shift occurs, how crowdsourcing works and how to make it work for you. Combining vision with hands-on guidelines, their book “De C2B Revolutie” stands out (C2B = Consumer to Business). They show how the role of the consumer is changing and explain – in 7 practical steps and through 19 case studies – how crowdsourcing can be used to reach and involve the consumer.
How Tim and Robert got started
With Tim the basic idea of crowdsourcing got hold when he attended a lecture by the country Manager of Google the Netherlands, Pim van der Feltz. Instead of delivering a standard presentation, Van der Feltz offered the public 7 options to choose from. While a film clip played, the audience sent in their preferred choice of topic through an online platform. Coincidentally, the most popular subject turned out to be Tim’s preferred topic. This struck him as an epiphany. So logical! Why guess what people want to hear if you can ask? It is in our nature to think along, to participate, so let’s use this desire and capacity to make new things possible! It is time to extend the Marketing Mix with a 7th P, the P for Participation.
Robert and Tim met during their Marketing studies at the VU. Before this study, Robert had already been part of the foundation of a crowdsourcing platform, called Edge Amsterdam. When they found each other at the VU, the idea to found their own crowdsourcing consultancy company quickly arose. To start their first activities, in 2009 they contacted Heineken. And to their surprise were enthusiastically received by the marketing manager, who took his time and spend half of the afternoon listening to their ideas about crowdsourcing. After that meeting, they realized that even the managers in big companies didn’t know what the best approach was to crowdsource: ‘What is missing is a crowdsourcing handbook, a guide!’ They decided to create that book.
Pioneers in uncharted terrain
It wasn’t easy. A search in the academic database on Crowdsourcing at the time yielded … 6 results! Pioneering this field, they had to find most out by themselves. Drawing on their own experience, on comparable processes such as open source and co-creation, and on real life cases where crowdsourcing had been used. Crowdsourcing they define as “Making purposeful use of the desire of (large groups of) people to participate, in a way that creates added value for the initiator”.
Although the term was coined in 2006 only, the phenomenon is not new. A nice example is how two centuries ago many ships got lost because they were unable to establish their longitude position at sea. The problem was considered so intractable that British Parliament launched the Longitude Prize, offering a huge sum of money for the solution. Many brilliant minds participated, but it was a local clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer that revolutionized the possibility of safe long distance travel at sea – and that won him the prize.
What is new is a context progressively calling for the involvement of a consumer, who is more and more empowered and requiring to participate. The internet provides the technology, a context and a structure for online communities. Consumers are over-educated and over-competent: they have more capacities than their jobs can absorb and are looking for other ways to make use of their enthusiasm. Consumers are turning into prosumers: they want to produce as well as consume … it is in our nature to want to participate.
On the other side of the spectrum, organizations are becoming more and more market-oriented and discover the benefits of really involving the consumer. It allows them to improve their performance because they get to know their customers and their needs more intimately. It also allows them to build strong and healthy relationships with their customers, relationships based on openness and reciprocity instead of ‘push’.
More fundamentally, organizations are losing their traditional monopolies on efficiency, economies of scale and knowledge that were their raison d’etre. And so they will need to do more. The added value of organizations will progressively lie in their capacity to facilitate processes of value-creation, in response to customer desires. The capacity to organize, to stimulate creativity and to involve customers will be at the heart of any future organization.
Against this more visionary background, the book provides an extensive practical approach describing the many faces of crowdsourcing, the choices you face when you want to launch yourself, and how to go about seeding, breeding, feeding and weeding the crowd. Illustrated with lots of practical examples to get inspired by – such as the case of … The Hub!
What’s next?
If it is up to Tim and Robert, their book is a first step towards the Nobel Prize for having fundamentally changed the economy. Towards an economy of empowerment, where connections flourish and where people work together to make things better. As individuals we are too small, but together we can demand more openness, more fairness, and more meaningfullness.
For now, the book is a success – and hopefully this will be a first step to put crowdsourcing more actively on the agendas. Because the number of organizations that actually, factually launch themselves in this direction is still limited. Tim and Robert remain pioneers, trying to boost the ‘C2B market’ on a daily base with their consultancy agency.
More and more, they get invited for lectures and workshops to share their ideas. And what drives them within their core business, is being involved in interesting projects with a strong ‘Why’ as they put it. A South-African documentary maker that has been making films for 30 years and now wants to move beyond the traditional format: making her own movie on Sustainability, with the active involvement and participation of fans who will not only co-create the movie but through it get fully involved in this sustainability movement as well. Or Education 3.0, an enterprising school concept where children are involved in co-creating not only the content but the school’s financial plan as well. Or a project to make the meat market more transparent. And so on. The common theme: involve your customers and stakeholders to revolutionize your offer.
If you have questions regarding involving your own customers, don’t hesitate to contact them. They are more than happy to help fellow Hub members over a cup of coffee. And naturally they are open for any interesting and solvent contacts, to be put in touch with! We trust that these guys will find their way, and business will know how to find them.
Happy new year!
and that we surely have some experience to contribute in taking the conversation about the relationship between community and place forward…