Jacob Matenaer
MIS 441
9:30am T/TH
Tech Musing 2
Article Title: “Question 4 from the TopCoder Case”
Company: DesignCrowd
Main URL Link: http://www.designcrowd.com/
From
Website
“DesignCrowd is an online
marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by
providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the
world.”
Mission Statement: “To give people opportunities to be creative and to provide businesses with risk-free graphic design”
Briefly
describe the main point or contribution of the article (Company)
“TopCoder Q4: What it does, how it works, and
the types of problems it is working to solve”
Founded by CEO Alec Lynch in 2008, DesignCrowd is a
crowdsourcing/outsourcing design site where businesses can post a quick
overview of what they want designed for their company, including the budget the
design must stay under, and then a community of over 500,000 graphic designers
worldwide will overview the project and submit design ideas. Some of the
designs that can be requested are logos, websites, t-shirts, flyers, brochures,
and business cards. DesignCrowd advertises that each design request on average
will receive 25 to over 100 ideas from the design community. They advertise
themselves as being:
- Worldwide
- Fast Turnarounds
- Cheaper
- More Creative
- Risk Free (100% money back guarantee if not happy)
After the final design is selected, companies are then granted all the rights and proper files to the designs. (I.e. Copyrights and industry standard files). DesignCrowd and the crowdsourcing of creative designs solves the problem of businesses lacking a strong marketing department. This could be extremely useful for someone who runs a business and is talented in operations or finance related issues but lacks a creative sense to market and brand their company.
- Worldwide
- Fast Turnarounds
- Cheaper
- More Creative
- Risk Free (100% money back guarantee if not happy)
After the final design is selected, companies are then granted all the rights and proper files to the designs. (I.e. Copyrights and industry standard files). DesignCrowd and the crowdsourcing of creative designs solves the problem of businesses lacking a strong marketing department. This could be extremely useful for someone who runs a business and is talented in operations or finance related issues but lacks a creative sense to market and brand their company.
Show
how it is related to the class and topics we have discussed
Our slides say that
crowdsourcing contests are a form of collective action. More specifically,
it defines it by saying “running contests on niche community platforms to
select the best design, video, or solution from hundreds of submissions.”
DesignCrowd directly reflects this statement and relates to our class through
use of creative talent worldwide that competes to design the best product for
the customer. As I learned more and more about this company I started to view
them as the “Graphic Design version of TopCoder”.
Importance as MIS Professional/Student
Personally I have never used this site but in researching
found many attractive factors to the MIS and creative communities. In relation
to MIS, I feel this site could be very helpful because as MIS professionals and
students we all hold some form of interest in computers and electronics. That
being said, some people prefer more of the coding and development creativity
side of it. While others, may prefer using pre-built software and design tools
combined with IT knowledge to design amazing virtual designs, worlds, and
characters. (i.e. video games and movie animation) This site would allow the
second type of aforementioned creative MIS professional chances to earn extra
money through contests just like TopCoder offers the coding creative MIS
professional that same opportunity. Regardless of the medium used, they both
allow MIS/IT professionals to be creative and challenge themselves in their own
ways with the similar end goal of creating a value adding product for a customer.
Link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3b82d910-bf6b-11e5-846f-79b0e3d20eaf.html#axzz41bxAhl30
The largest pharmaceutical groups that include Johnson & Johnson as well as Merck were 2 of more than 80 groups that signed a call for collective action regarding the need for stronger antibiotics. It now has become a global issue as many of these groups are noticing a lack of development within the existing antibiotics. A lack of financial incentive from the government to support new commercial models has discouraged research and development. This has caused companies to overuse existing drugs which has led to bacteria also known as superbugs to develop a resistance to the antibiotics. The potential harm to society could mean 10 million deaths a year by 2050 due to drug-resistance infections and a cumulative loss from global economic output of up to $100 trillion dollars. Companies in pharmaceutical world have called for greater R&D collaboration between industries as well as ensuring affordable access across the world. While there has been acknowledgement of this major problem at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the need for government backing is a huge necessity to incentivizing companies to tackle this problem.
While this article doesn’t directly emphasize what is important about being an MIS professional, it showcases the importance of knowledge in the business world. It’s important to understand the field you’re working in whether that be the healthcare industry, data mining, or something else. This article emphasizes the importance of acknowledging a big problem, and in this case a global one. It shows that in various industries even pertaining to the healthcare world that there is always need for change. In recognizing this a MIS professional or an average citizen, it’s important to recognize the bigger problem at hand and in some cases working together with other groups of people in order to achieve a common goal. In class, we have spent a lot of time learning about various approaches for better system development, however, it is always important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. This calls for collective action in order to efficiently and effectively improve the drug industry as a whole.
Interesting article. "More than 80 leading international pharmaceutical, generics, diagnostics and biotechnology companies, as well as key industry bodies, have come together to call on governments and industry to work in parallel in taking comprehensive action against drug-resistant infections – so-called ‘superbugs’ – with a joint declaration launched today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The statement sets out for the first time how governments and industry need to work together to support sustained investment in the new products needed to beat the challenges of rising drug resistance."
DeleteAt first I was a bit skeptical, then I read that they wanted to include mechanisms to ensure that "the pricing of antibiotics more adequately reflects the benefits they bring; and novel payment models that reduce the link between the profitability of an antibiotic and the volume sold. An integral part of these models is a reduced need for promotional activity by companies."
I read this article here because I couldn't access yours.
Jake, there are so many websites that offer these types of design that have been around for quite a while. Threadless is one, but there are many others. I think this site is just trying to take a quick stab at all of them. So much supply that you have to wonder what the demand for these products are and how sustainable a company that does every type of design. Any idea?
ReplyDelete