Putting Innovation in the Hands of a Crowd - New York Times
A nice quick description of Kluster, the latest of several companies which attempt to organize, formalize, and monetize crowdsourcing for companies looking for innovation from outside their own workforce. Probably the first of these companies was Innocentive, which was started up by Alph Bingham, a very clever fellow who, among other things, pioneered prediction markets at Eli Lilly’s eLilly division with great success. Cambrian House and Idea Crossing are two other players in the crowdsourcing business.
Each of these organizations takes a somewhat different approach to creating a crowdsourcing model, and differ quite markedly in style. Innocentive comes across as the most grown-up of the bunch, corporate friendly, and seems to have the longest track record, although this is a very new field and it remains to be seen how things will shake out. Kluster, the subject of the NYT article, is the most youthful, not surprising as it’s founder is 21 years old. Their website, though certainly well put together, has a bit of a skateboard aesthetic, especially when the young man in the wool cap makes his cameo.