You know that pet idea that’s been percolating in your head for ages? Now there’s an unorthodox way to bring it to life and have others’ collectively build on it (or tell you why you should bin it).
Quirky is an online service that harnesses the collective intelligence of the crowd to source and develop new product ideas – a simple way for anyone to be an inventor by posting a product idea for others to rate, or be an influencer and vet other people’s product ideas.
“What if we could distribute the power of influence to tens of thousands of people? It’s individuals having a little piece of something huge” Ben Kaufman, Founder.
Quirky is a spin-off from Kluster, the collaborative decision making platform, and adopts a ‘quick and dirty’ innovation process, with a fast turnaround of ideas, and lots of iterative building and proto-typing.
Simply log on, rate the ideas that are listed on the site, or have others vet your idea (for a mere $99) – and the collective influence of thousands determines what gets the green light to be manufactured and developed.
The Quirky Process
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Participants post their idea onto the site within the 7 day submission period, hand over $99, and they’re open for business on www.quirky.com.
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Ideas are given a working name, a blurb about what it does, and any images or sketches are uploaded to help the community get what it’s all about and how it works.
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The community weighs in after the 7 day submission period and rates all the ideas based on the criteria they set. The more they slide the bar to the right, the more they dig the idea. The ‘influencers’ are the filter for deciding which ideas will fly.
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The winning idea(s) are transformed into professionally manufactured products that will live on the shelf and make the inventor some cold, hard cash in the form of a Payoneer card – a Kluster branded debit card.
Companies could learn a trick or two from tapping into the collective influence of a community of consumers to get fast, honest feedback on brand and product ideas. The beauty of the concept is its momentum and speed of access and response from bright sparks across the globe.
In these credit-crunched times, is this a low-risk, smart way for the big guys to bring those ideas to life that might just get binned otherwise?
Site: www.quirky.com
About the Author: A former journalist and copywriter, Jacqueline has spent most of her career as an innovation consultant working with major brands. (More)
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