Last night I followed a fragment of a Twitter conversation between @andrewhyde and @alabut about “community vs spec work”. Al asked Andrew if he felt that design competitions were spec work. Andrew said via Twitter, “depends on the purpose, if [their] motivation is the love of design or the company, then it is a push, if the motivation is $ = bad”.
For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume Andrew is talking about the motivation of the designer. I agree with the essence of what Andrew is saying, but I feel it’s important to understand that the designer’s motivation has fundamentally nothing to do with what makes work spec or not.
If the designer who has the most designs printed at Threadless was a talented yet greedy bastard whose sole purpose was monetary gain, that wouldn’t change the fact that submitting to Threadless isn’t spec work. The main difference between a design contest and spec work is the expectation of the end result.
For design of any kind, the more specific the expectation, the higher the probability you’re entering into spec-zone. Alternatively, in a non-design setting such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, crowdsourcing can be successfully utilized even with the expectation of a highly specific result.
As a business concept with a high trend value, proven success, and the perception of being easy – marketers and serial entrepreneurs want to try to find every way possible to use crowdsourcing.
Without an understanding what spec work is, in a design setting, the line between it and crowdsourcing easily is crossed. Consider this: According to AIGA, spec work can be defined as “the practice of requesting that design work be produced and submitted on a speculative basis in order to be considered for acceptance on a project”. Jeff Howe, the Wired writer who coined the term “crowdsourcing” defines the process as “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.” See how there could be confusion between the two?
Here’s the difference in a practical setting:
Spec Work
Hey there millions of fans, we know some of you are artists! We’re putting out a new album called “Zebras Are Awesome”. Wanna meet us and take home $500? Design a tee shirt with Zebras on it, be sure to use our logo in the artwork, then submit it to us. The one we like best is the winner!
Crowdsourcing
Hey there millions of fans, we’re putting out a new album called “Zebras Are Awesome”. We know some of you are artists! Wanna meet us and take home $500? To celebrate our new album, we want you to design and submit a tee inspired by your love for us. All of the fans will tell us which one they like best and we’ll pick one!
Beyond misunderstanding its purpose in a community/customer-facing setting, I’ve also seen people trying to use crowdsourcing in interesting places.
Here’s an example: Jake and I were recently interviewed for a blog focused on project management. The writer wanted to hear our thoughts on how crowdsourcing could be used in project management. Take a second to think about that. My thoughts? Set aside the “how”, and concentrate on “why would you want to crowdsource your project management?”
There isn’t some big secret to crowdsourcing. It’s an incredibly simple and straightforward concept, which ultimately has limited applications. Within those applications it’s up to whoever attempts to use crowdsourcing to take the time to fully understand its purpose and consider when its use is appropriate.
It should be a passion play; best used to activate the brainpower of either a dedicated community, or a group of people who have both a connection to a project/brand plus ample motivation to complete the task. It shouldn’t simply be a substitute for something you can’t, won’t or don’t want to do as a means to an end. The best applications of crowdsourcing are in a setting where the focus includes the advancement of a community, however, it’s more important to the longevity of the concept first understand what is and is not crowdsourcing before worrying about how and where it’s properly being used.
3 Comments
Micah Baldwin is a douche bag!
Great post.
One thing that is worthy of adding is remembering what ecosystem you are in. If you see what you are doing as poisoning the downstream life, then your actions should should be rethought.
I see many of the spec sites out there today as promoting a ‘new way of recycling’ when they are dumping oil down the river. If the practice builds up community in the short lifespan of the company, and pushes an industry to focus on quick, lack of quality ethic, then it is the responsibility of everyone in the ecosystem to bring it up, say we can do better.
As a business guy, I struggle with the concept of spec work. I see no problem in asking designers, who you might be spending thousands and thousands of dollars with, to provide concepts of what they might do for you. I did it all the time when I ran my agency.
And, crowdsourcing is a relatively new concept to me. Why would I want the “crowd” to do the work that I am being paid for? Or to develop the product I should be designing?
Your description of the difference really helps solidify it for me. There is a ton of value for a community to decide what it wants and help design it. Especially in the design world, where there are so many particularities to what is viable and what is not.
7 Trackbacks
[...] Jeffrey from Threadless (on my panel) discusses the difference between laziness and crowsourcing [...]
[...] The Fine Line Between Laziness and Crowdsourcing [...]
[...] The Fine Line Between Laziness and Crowdsourcing [...]
[...] The Fine Line Between Laziness and Crowdsourcing [...]
[...] The Fine Line Between Laziness and Crowdsourcing [...]
[...] work • Spec Work Is Evil and Why I Hate Crowdspring • Design Contests – The battle continues • The Fine Line Between Laziness and Crowdsourcing • Just Say No To Spec Work • How NOT To Design A Logo • The Real Problem With Design Contests [...]
[...] panelist in the above discussion-offers a levelheaded analysis of the spec marketplace. “The fine line between laziness and crowdsourcing” – Jefferey Kalmikoff’s notes the differences between spec work and [...]