Product
Crowd-sourcing is a dirty word. It conjures up images of volumes of derivative and thoughtless design, particularly in the graphic design community. However, the power of the internet is its hive mind. Riley Gibson and Warren Ng thought that there must be a way to harness that power with a fair way of compensating users for their ideas and time. In the summer of 2009, they asked Zoë and I to consult and help devise a a web-based workflow and basic interaction design to jumpstart their venture, Napkin Labs.
At its core, the long term goal we devised for Napkin Labs (NL) was to create an online community space that would make it easy for anyone to contribute ideas, build off of others and eventually be rewarded for their collaboration. Many models of crowdsourcing compete users against each other. We don't believe that this leads to the best solutions, or creates a positive atmosphere. By asking everyone to bounce ideas off each other and work collaboratively, NL becomes one giant brainstorming session. We created a presentation to demonstrate these values and ideas to interested VC's. The basic foundation of NL is that the more you contribute to the group, the more you are rewarded. That could mean that your initial inspiration is the main driver for the final deliverable, or that many little comments, critiques and contributions will still reap a profit, thereby encouraging more people to join in. Although people from all walks of life would be expected to join in, NL would especially appeal to freelancers. If successful, NL would create a place that makes freelancing easy.
NL is not meant to be a traditional consultancy, nor is it meant to compete with them. It would occupy a unique position of having a wide range of talents in large numbers. A client seeking fresh ideas could count on NL to come up with interesting ways of solving their problem. Of course, you can't count on the Internet to always stay on track; NL would employ creative curators/project managers to help nudge and give feedback to the users. They key to NL success is a hybridization of the traditional design firm and the success part of crowdsourcing: the vast numbers of creatives at its disposal. As a final deliverable, NL itself would synthesize the output for the client into an actionable solution.