Collaborative creation: How to crowdsource your business

Have you heard of collaborative creation? It’s the latest business model but it’s also as old as the hills.

Mellett told SmartCompany the overarching trend of collaborative creation is that the boundaries about employment are going to change over the next five to 10 years.

He says in some industries that has already happened and who works for whom is less and less relevant.

“We are seeing in the legal industry that the change is happening, if companies can bring people in and deliver on projects for demand and then send them off when they are no longer needed then it means they can more dynamically respond to the market,” he says.

“Plexus is taking advantage of that trend and giving law firms a more flexible resource base than they were used to.”

Mellett says there are a number of forces driving the move towards more collaborative creation in business.

“There are a lot of people out there who want work to fit with their life and not life to fit with their work. The number one driver of employment in Australia is not compensation, it is work life balance,” he says.

“The IT industry has been all over this for 20 years and what I think is going to happen is people will band together in different formations to solve different problems more rapidly and I think you will see that on an individual level and on another level, businesses will band together to solve problems or to create great product.”

Mellett says collaborative creation is both a new trend and an old trend as it has been happening in various industries for a long time.

“It’s just because of technology, people are able to do this more effectively now than ever before so the trend will accelerate,” he says.