Lab 6 - Crowd sourcing sites review

Ponoko (Manufacture design)

Workforce: 150, 000+ at 12 digital making centers across the USA, EU and NZ.

Customers: Anyone, as well as a lot of big brands including Disney, Google, Apple, HP, Icebreaker, and more.

Positive impact such sites have on the current market place: 

• Ponoko's service is innovative, pushing ideas out there that the current market place may be able to adapt and utilize in their own way. 
• If Ponoko is correct in assuming distributed digital mass production is "the third industrial revolution", the current market place will benefit from the lessons Ponoko has learned in pioneering.

Negative impact such sites have on the current market place: 

• Ponoko might be putting some manufacturers out of business due to the quality of their services as an alternative to other ways to manufacture. 

Chaordix (Business Innovation)

Workforce: Customers and followers of big brands, wanting to contribute to the development of products.

Customers: Big brands such as IBM, P&G, Lego, and others seeking co-created products, market intelligence, and customer advocacy.

Positive impact such sites have on the current market place: 

•  Chaordix's concept of engaging customers through this crowd sourcing method may give other business innovation organizations some good ideas to try implementing, thus improving the overall standard of the marketplace.

Negative impact such sites have on the current market place:

• As Chaordix has the ability to connect customers to big brands, marketing specialist agencies could have a loss of business, especially if they utilize the more traditional, possibly less engaging ways of reaching customers.