Google gets it right. Google may be the most obvious benefactor of cognitive surplus, but their model is actually bit different. They don’t actively tap into your free time, for the most part. There are communities, groups and forums, but these are a bit different from the more sinister efforts. Google certainly pays attention to their users and collects information and use it to develop new products in larger markets, like the enterprise. They are also always on the prowl for new ways of incorporating ads.

Gawker Media, the company behind  some of the most popular blogs on the web, Apple loving Gizmodo and LifeHacker both of which rely on tips from users and leverages their readers to participate in polls to benefit themselves via top 5 articles, and get some analysis and solve idea challenges of their commercial partners. Many commenters call them out but can’t help but contribute. They don’t acknowledge the importance and involvement of their readers and sources and rely heavily upon the crowd to produce anything.

Ideo - Farms out their design and idea factory in the Open Ideo project. A very lucrative business model. Think of the low overhead of free. Now think of the underemployed, highly skilled masses out there with plenty of free time on their hands. I now give you your free work force.

Pepsi, Frito Lay, taking from Ideo’s model,  now have their various idea contests out there.  Pepsi Refresh, Frito Lay’s “Green Initiative”  cleverly marketed under the umbrella of social goodness, but lost in the fine print, you find out their intent is to leverage the best and brightest assets for free to fatten their wallets.

Idea competitions for private profit. Including but not limited to MIT,  Cornell, Lansing’s Next Bright Idea  competition and all the various derivatives. In the next installment of this series, we’ll cover the contests and competition as we explore how gamification ads a wrinkle of complexity in the war for cognitive surplus.

What do you think of this as a business practice? What do you think of it as a consumer? I’ll farm out these questions to you. Feel free to lend some feedback…in your free time.

As we continue our exploration into the implications of Cognitive Surplus, in this piece, we’ll go green and focus on how businesses leverage the green and the good movements to tap into cognitive surplus.

Traditional business models are mimicking their younger social entrepreneur counterparts, stimulating the crowd to volunteer their time to help do some “good.” Just as cost cutting has been associated with carbon cutting and the green movement, any business can easily spin their efforts to trim the fat as “green” and get the masses involved. The real trick, is that in weeding out the not so good ideas,  getting to the golden, refined answers. There are no losers because everyone goes home feeling like they’ve made a contribution to something good. They gave up their “free” time to do “good”.

Who are these Soiled Green offenders?

No playground is safe. A good example of these wolves in super hero clothing are the upstart companies that build community playgrounds. They require the community to come up with 85% of the costs for the playground and a small team comes in to do the skilled labor (think  bull dozers, jack hammers and what not). Then the company proceeds to crowdsource the rest of the work to volunteers citing a vested community interested in the playground.

This seems like a win-win. The community gets a playground and “feels” like it received a good value but  the devil is in the details. Did anyone stop to consider the profit margins on the project for the company? Nope. They’re too lost in feel good land and who would question the seemingly good effort of such a company.   The profit margins reveal a more lucrative opportunity for the companies. The free labor, combined with the new almost turn key playground solutions,  wrapped up in marketing language of social entrepreneurship.

You might say that’s just hard labor and volunteering on community projects is old hat, and this is true, but instead of being focused on doing good, companies of this type are disguising cost and profit. Imagine if consumers never questioned the price. Driving a premium price for products and services is among any company’s top goals right? What better way to drive prices by requiring community involvement/labor for the quote to be accurate?

These are the same methodologies that get charities into trouble, often leading to corruption. Think back to the various scandals involving Red Cross and others. And as you think about these entities, compare the green of money to the green cause, and ask yourself which one any company is more likely to pursue.

These methods have evolved into a new game to leverage not your physical labor, but your mental ability. This is what cognitive surplus is all about. With the sprinkled magic of gamification,  which will be covered in the next part of this series, companies like Pepsi Co., Frito Lay, and Ideo distract the masses and get you to surrender your good ideas that will benefit /improve the company, their products or initiatives in a social competition with other competitors. These efforts not only market the brands and associate them with the green or popular effort, they also crowd source research and development. The terms of participation through various means reserve the rights to the idea or at least infinite license to leverage the idea commercially.

Conclusion:

This is bad for the worker bee, the consumer, the volunteers and perhaps more importantly bad for the economy. New Ideas commercially leveraged at the top of the food chain generally don’t create as many jobs or growth as small businesses and entrepreneurs bringing new products and services to market. The solution? Micro Goodness and Boot Strapping. Think like Rockefeller or Ford and focus on bootstrapping your ideas. We should encourage entrepreneurship not crowdsourcing or volunteering ideas to make big businesses bigger and better. More competition brings more options, opportunities and lower prices.