Wednesday, June 25th, 2008...8:43 pm - Catherine Gleeson
SEED your business by crowdsourcing
Image: Mike Rohde
With the US economy described as being in “free fall”, the 3rd SEED conference held in Chicago a couple of weeks ago on 6 June, may be for some, a beacon of optimism in an otherwise bleak and stormy landscape. It was a small, one day affair which apparently attracted a (mostly male) audience of around 300 or so. The message appears to have been simple: “Take creative ideas and turn them into something SATISFYING & BANKABLE” - in other words, do what really fires you up.
Among the guest speakers were Carlos Segura, founder for the digital type foundry T26, Jason Fried of 37 signals, Jake Nickell and Jeffrey Kalmikoff of the über successful Threadless T-shirt community and the apparently mad (but rich and getting richer every day) Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine TV Library (who was apparently “kidnapped” on the day by Melissa Pierce of Life In Perpetual Beta fame - for fun). Of note, is that most of these guys didn’t go to business school and the common philosophy they share is that we should all be ready to “fail as much as possible”. Nickell and Kalmikoff also share the rule of “crowdsourcing” where content is community created, the community manages and grows itself and the community is ultimately rewarded.
Gary Vaynerchuk declares “Now, is the beginning of the gold rush in personal branding. . .”
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