Betacup, an environmental organization unleashed the “Betacup Challenge” program this April to invite ideas to design an innovative reusable coffee cup thus paving way to reduce the number of coffee-chain disposable cups thrown away each year. This contest was launched worldwide in collaboration with Starbucks where they offered attractive cash awards to top six design ideas and spread way beyond just food and beverage products.
Of the 430 applicants, nearly all of them were zealous design professionals who without any concern about the cash rewards conceded their sincere commitment and time. Eventually, the challenge was an enormous hit because of the rise of social media channels and the natural human desire to share and collaborate.
Now, building and sharing thoughts and items online is turning out to be a simple routine activity to many talented folks due to the ubiquity and openness of online social media platforms. This has also transpired as a convincing proposition to all kinds of businesses that a source of a thought or design, is not required to come from inside the company (people pitch use ideas for wheelchair accessories all the time).
In these online platforms, resourceful communities submit, evaluate, comment on and work together to develop ideas and thus, these contests have evolved into “innovative collective collaboration”. There are a few guidelines mentioned below which marketers and brand managers should bear in mind to run successful creative mass collaboration projects:
• Ensure that the project is stated and rolled out accurately: Mention the policies, the entry condition, the judging criteria and process, and the rewards openly and clearly
• Nurture the creative community: A collaboration project would be booming only if is fair with proper recognition and prizes. Always separate license agreement and reward money since creative communities latch on to their work till the time it is selected to be accredited.
• Create public capital: By and large people participate in collaboration projects for recognition and glory in addition to financial gains. Build a public online showcase for participants’ work when the project is progressing or even later. This will confirm that you are granting due credit to his/her efforts.
• Open is good: By means of an “open” tactic where each and every thought is public and can be viewed, shared, and commented on by all, insights can be discovered that are objective and unbiased and also superior solutions can often be found.
The Betacup Challenge asked participants to design a reusable cup, however the victorious team, surfaced an “idea” instead of a cup design (sadly an idea doesn’t fit in our cup holder). They proposed that coffee shops persuade customers to bring their own reusable cup by rewarding every 10th person who does so with a free coffee. For this innovative idea, the winning team walked off with $10,000.
Betacup and Starbucks would in no way have thought of such an exceptional and neat solution in their resolve on building a new type of cup for consumers to place in their drink holders. This was located only by seeking input and involvement from outside the conventional organization.
Therefore social mass collaboration is truly an absolute field of new opportunities and not simply a new world.
