produsage and business: sharing your brand with users
DESCRIPTION
Presented at next09 (Hamburg, 6 May 2009)TRANSCRIPT
Produsage and Business: Sharing Your Brand with Users
Dr Axel Bruns
Senior LecturerSmart Services CRC /
Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and InnovationQueensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
snurb.info – produsage.orgsmartservicescrc.com.au – cci.edu.au
6 May 2009
(http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/capitalism1.htm)
• Decline of the traditional value chain:
producer distributor consumer
(producer advised by consumer distributor consumer)
(customer-made ideas producer distributor consumer)
• ‘Prosumption’ not enough: more than just ‘professional consumers’
Beyond Production
prosumption
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(http://labs.digg.com/stack)
Toward Produsage
(as producer)
produser
(as user)
produsage(gradual, continuous, incremental, iterative, never complete, …)
content content
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Key Principles
• Shared across collaborative social media environments:– Open Participation, Communal Evaluation:
the community as a whole, if sufficiently large and varied, can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however qualified
– Fluid Heterarchy, Ad Hoc Meritocracy:produsers participate as is appropriate to their personal skills, interests, and knowledges; this changes as the produsage project proceeds
– Unfinished Artefacts, Continuing Process:content artefacts in produsage projects are continually under development, and therefore always unfinished; their development follows evolutionary, iterative, palimpsestic paths
– Common Property, Individual Merit:contributors permit (non-commercial) community use of their intellectual property, and are rewarded by the status capital
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Produsage and Business
• Commercial opportunities:– User-led innovation– Crowdsourcing– Viral marketing– Boost to brand recognition– Improved brand perception– New markets– New business models
• Commercial threats:– Loss of control– Community backlash– Transparency tyranny
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Success in the Share Economy
• Engaging with produsage communities:1. Be open.
For users (access) and with users (transparency).
2. Seed community processes by providing content and tools.
Model desired behaviour, assist productive participation.
3. Support community dynamics and devolve responsibilities.
Engage promising community leaders as they emerge.
4. Don’t exploit the community and its work.
Making money is fine, but you don’t own your users.
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1. Be Open
• Access:– Allow broad participation– Don’t build artificial barriers– Enable community to highlight quality /
sanction disruptions
• Transparency:– Be honest about your aims– Involve the community in your planning– Discuss proposed changes
(Be Wikipedia, not Facebook.)
(http://www.canada.com/technology/Facebook+vows+improvements+after+user+backlash/1426664/story.html)
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2. Seed Community Processes
• Content:– Produsage builds on initial inputs– E.g. Linus Torvald’s first Linux kernel,
Wikipedia’s first articles, …– These set the further trajectory– Ensure that you have great staff creating
this content (and acting as role models)
• Tools:– Available tools determine the solution horizon– User toolkits must be simple and powerful
(cf. Eric von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation)– Track and incorporate user needs and wants– Prepare for unexpected demands
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3. Support Community Dynamics
• Community dynamics:– Gradual definition of rules and values– Ongoing process of mutual evaluation– Emergence of community structures– Support, don’t stifle – aim for self-regulation– Plan to devolve management responsibility
• Community leaders:– ‘Benevolent dictators’? ‘Micro-celebrities’?– Dependent on continued community support– Partners in innovation processes– Involve, engage (employ?)– But don’t turn into ‘community managers’
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4. Don’t Exploit the Community
• Content ownership:– Intellectual property is dead– Sharing can be profitable– Enable content spreadability– Anticipate user-led content distribution
• User lock-in:– ‘Hijacking the hive’ is lucrative at first, …– … but will seriously damage your brand.– Support content and service mash-ups– Prepare to lose some control over your brand– Anticipate the new opportunities this creates
seed contentand toolkitsprovided bycommercialoperators
crowdsourcing ofinputs to R&D and
innovation processes
commercial services to support produsage
commercial activities by users themselves, harnessing the hive
(and promoting the brand)
professional staff, kick-startingcommunityprocesses
user-led content developmentby produsage communities
(supported by commercial operators)
valuable, often commercial-grade content is created
Produsage Environment(open to all comers)
Produsage and Business
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Viral Marketing
Axel Bruns
Senior Lecturer
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
Project Leader for Social Media
Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre
Email: [email protected]
Blog: http://snurb.info/
Produsage: http://produsage.org/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/snurb
Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond:From Production to Produsage (Peter Lang, 2008)
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