Like all the rest of the companies working in collaboration tools, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding or any of the other “Social Commerce” domains, the biggest challenge at BountyUp seems to be “Cognition Friction”. Which is a fancy way of saying that people have no idea what we’re talking about.

The best way to address this seems to be by analogy - unfortunately, we’ve yet to find a sufficiently universal analogy, to which all of our current (and future) users can relate. But as I hinted at in a previous post, we’ve been considering the Stock Market.

Why? Whether the participants realize it or not, it’s a massively collaborative experiment in Social Commerce - with literally MILLIONS of strangers pooling their funds to support (and capitalize on) companies around the world. In fact, it’s the closest thing to BountyUp that exists.

Here are the gaps:

1. In the stock market, you invest in companies as a whole. With BountyUp, you invest directly in the project or product you’re interested in.
2. The stock market can only be used for investing - BountyUp can be used for investing, purchasing, or donating.
3. Investments in the stock market are immediately at risk - BountyUp pledges are actually incentives, not true investments. The upside is that they’re never at risk - if the product or project is not completed, you get your funds back. The downside - you have no claim to company returns that are outside of the Bounty contracts.
4.  There’s no “tool” (outside of the Annual General Meeting) to chat with other investors in the Stock Market. BountyUp provides a forum as well as a marketplace.

On second thought, perhaps this analogy is reaching a bit. What do think? Can you think of a simpler, better way to explain what crowdfunding and crowdsourcing is, and how to do it?

Who is Jones Soda? What is this funny looking drink with its bright colors that you want me to drink?

Are you kidding me!?

Why would I ever give up my beloved Dr Pepper?

This is what I thought in on my first ever Warped tour back in good’ol 1997. I saw products all around me and was taken by their influence on me. Jones Soda, Yoohoo chocolate drinks, Gatorade, Hurley, Vans, AOL, Hansen’s, Sprite, Ernie Ball, G-Shock Watches and the list goes on…I couldn’t get away from then.

What started as a closed minded assumption about Yoohoo Chocolate drinks quickly turned into an obsession. There wasn’t a day on the Warped tour that I didn’t drink at least a six-pack. I know, I know a six-pack you say. Yes, I had one every day. Yoohoo is surprisingly refreshing on a hot summer day. And those wacky guys at Jones Soda had me hooked with their lollypop colored drinks; I was sporting G-Shock watches and wearing Vans shoes. (more…)

jFor the last 17 years I have been involved in live events in some form or another, from concerts to sports events and even some corporate meetings. Regardless if it’s U2, the Superbowl or Microsoft Company Meeting people will never stop loving the live event. And no matter how fast the Internet becomes or how much you can view or download at one time the live event will never disappear. Now you may think I’m nuts, but the live event can mean many things to many people. For some it’s going out to eat, for others it’s shopping at the mall, but for me, and the purposes of this blog, it’s the rock concert. It may be a question of analogue versus digital, but that is really a discussion for another time.

The first large concert that I was involved in was a European festival called Dynamo Open Air. I was there with a band that none of you would know, let alone remember. I was 19 years old, impressionable and extremely naive. I had talked myself into a position of mixing the sound for this unnamed band at a festival with an average attendance of one hundred thousand kids, a far cry from the clubs of my hometown of Austin Texas.I remember standing behind the large mixing console looking out at a sea of screaming kids as the band began to play their thunderous songs. The crowd immediately began to move to the beat of the songs like a giant single organism focused and intent on one thing. As the band finished their set the organism at once leapt into and furry of applause and preceded to purchase the band’s merchandise.

Now I doubt that many of the audience ever knew of this band, but by the end of their set you can sure bet that everyone did. Seventeen years later, and more events than I can count, it still amazes me how much power music has to move people. (more…)