Culture Briefings

Fortune Innovation Conference - Part 2

This is PART 2 of a multi-series on the Fortune Innovation Forum I attended last week in New York. Click here for PART 1.

I was looking forward to attending “Customer Created Content Companies” workshop to be led by Om Malik of GigaOm. Several workshops were held concurrently and they were booked to capacity. I managed to squeeze in and find some standing room but I realized within the first 15 minutes that I shouldn’t have bothered. About half the attendees left the room within the first 10 minutes and I stayed put for another 5 before exiting.

Om Malik severely underestimated the intelligence of his audiences. He began the workshop by asking his audiences if they had heard of companies like Threadless (Yes) JPEG (Yes) Slim Devices (Yes) About two people in the room had heard about these companies which have successfully harnessed the creativity of their customers. Malik’s big idea for the workshop was that you should compensate your audiences and share the profits. He gave many examples on how other companies were involving their customers but he failed to highlight the most important aspect of consumer created content. That just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t mean your company should join the bandwagon. It may just not make sense for you to do it!

I think if busy managers and executives are taking time off from and paying $2K for a conference, they aren’t looking for examples on how other people have achieved the next big idea. They are looking for construtive feedback on how they can achieve the same in their industries, withstanding the limitations and parameters the industry offers.

Also Malik reiterated the importance of paying your customers and sharing profits. I’d encourage everyone to think of it more as rewarding and appreciating your customers. Design Sponge, a popular design blogger has built a community of readers with her blog that now routinely meet in various cities once a month to discuss their businesses. This is an amazing example of involving your customers (in this case) readers creatively. Design Sponge isn’t paying these women to do that! It’s not about paying and sharing your profits, usually when you create a company or a website that resonates with your readers, they will WANT to be involved. And this doesn’t happen artificially. I was put off by how easy Malik made it sound.

Later that day in a panel however, Malik’s inputs about the future of innovation were eloquent and hit the bullseye. I wondered why his brilliance didn’t shine through in his workshop.