Outbreak of Capitalism Causes Established Business Community to Shudder February 4, 2009
Great article in the February 16, 2009 print edition of Forbes magazine. CrowdSpring.com is an online tool where, if you need graphic design of any type, you post your project and designers not only bid on the project but they submit their actual work on your design and compete for your business.
What a novel idea. Competition. Pure competition. This way the stay at home mom can compete with fancy pants agencies with high budgets, high overhead and a high penchant for designs that win awards but never actually help sell a product or service.
So, what do the entrenced designers do? According to the Forbes article, the established design community has started a campain called NoSpec–which urges designers not to work in advance of getting paid.
Catherine Brownlee, director of something called “the Association of Professional Design Firms” was quoted as saying “You can’t go to the new restaurant at the top of Trump Tower, ask for a taste, and then decide if you are going to pay.” (Guess she’s never been in a Great Harvest Bread Company store either.)
In other words, “we big and established firms are getting killed by entrepreneurship” so lets stop individual designers from competing. Who is she to try to dictate how any entrepreneur should act?
We see this happening with some frequency in lawyer advertising. Its not generally the consumer nor even a competitor that complains about a particular lawyer’s ads. Its the lawyer in the ivory tower, the one not worried about how to get the light bills paid, that generally complains.
Posted Under: capitalism,entrepreneurship,the Recession
Reader Comments
Hi Ben- Thanks so much for writing about crowdSPRING. I left a 13 year career as a laywer (intellectual property/trial lawyer) to co-found crowdSPRING as a way to level the playing field for talented creatives around the world. Change is threatening – no question about it – whether it’s the design industry or the law profession. And you’re absolutely right – pure competition is an unbelievable force. Designers from top agencies competing with janitors. And you can’t tell who’s who based on the work.
Best,
Ross Kimbarovsky
co-Founder
http://www.crowdspring.com
Comment:
Actually, No-Spec wasn’t started as a reaction to Crowdspring. No-Spec’s been around for years. Most participants in No-Spec aren’t ‘entrenched’ designers in ‘ivory’ towers but grass-roots freelance designers and independents.
Generally speaking, they’re little people without a voice.
(I’m not sure who sent me this comment, Ben)