Imagine investing “just” $50 in a clothing company so you could co-design the togs they make – and you can buy. My first thought was it
sounds like committee work at its worst. Yet that’s exactly what a firm called nvohk started doing.
Another clothing company, Threadless also uses this method and still another with a slightly more professional look, Zazzle (you can make money from your designs here).
There’s also a contest to design shoes.They are “crowdsourcing.” Elaine Polvinen thinks this approach will spread through the fashion world. In this podcast, Aaron Strout tells us
when he thinks this method may succeed – for us as consumers and/or as start-up entrepreneurs. And he’ll cover the pitfalls. Strout is “citizen marketer” at Mzinga. Mzinga developed and maintains the site for a crowdsourced 
book called We Are Smarter Than Me:How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business led “by” Barry Libert and Jon Spector. Now, they (oops, “we”) are working on the follow-up book.
Recently Strout spoke on a panel called The Power of Crowdsourcing, at WebGuild’s Web 2.0 Conference south of me in Santa Clara. His co-panelists are an experienced mix: Anil Rathi of Idea
Crossing, Michael Sikorsky of Cambrian House and moderator, Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research.
Discover crowdsourcing projects popping up for situations as diverse as locating interstellar dust particles, owning a team, selling photos, classify a million galaxies, avoid traffic jams
and co-create music CDs, political slogans and campaign videos or most any kind of project.
This is good news for inventive, creative people to use their best talents with others – and perhaps make money, change an industry or how we view the world and learn from each other. (Congrats Mzinga!)
