Letting customers do the work …
Interesting article on business model innovations that lean on the content and work contributed by customers … note also that communities of customers can do important innovation work as well, besides evangelizing about products and services they like …
It used to be that companies were created to serve customers. They would hire employees, build a product or service, and wait for people to beat a path to their doors. These days the prevailing business model on the Web seems to be the exact opposite: persuade customers to build the product themselves, and then have them do all the marketing by e-mailing their family, friends, co-workers, second cousins, and anyone else they can think of to come check out what they’ve done. It sort of makes sense. Why do all the work when you can get your customers to do it for you?
read more at Business 2.0
