RYZing Trend
August 21, 2008
When I was in grade school, I used to spend a lot of time drawing pictures. I would draw my name in various font styles. I would draw airplanes ( usually F-16’s) streaking across the sky. I would draw bugs and trees, people and monsters, mountains and rivers… and shoes.
I remember being in 1st grade trying to draw a picture of my John McEnroe style NIke’s, sometimes altering the color of the swoosh - which we could only get in red and light blue back in those days. I later gravitated toward doodling Adidas logos in differing color schemes. Then came Air Jordan’s, which I must have drawn and redrawn 1,000 times - usually in Carolina blue and white. I remember imaging how great it would be if I could just make my own shoes. Surely they would have been sweet kicks. I would have made a million dollars, bought an island, opened a skate park, hung out with Dan Marino and had my own show with Alyssa Milano. Alas, no such luck…
However there may be hope for the doodling, daydreaming, youth of today…
NPR featured a great story this morning about Oregon based shoe manufacturer RYZ. Similar to the T-Shirt company Threadless, RYZ relies on “the crowd” to design its shoes. No big marketing department. No R&D. No long design cycles. No focus groups. No big advertising budget. Oh… and none of the overhead that comes along with those things.
Nope, instead of all that, the company relies on the community of visitors to its site to create its products and then to vote on which designs should be produced. The winning designer receives $1,000 and a 1% royalty based on sales - a fraction of what it would typically cost to design and produce a pair of shoes. Better still, the process - which would take up to 12 months in a traditional shoe company - is as short as 6 weeks.
RYZ is succeeding by using technology to involve consumers in the process - an important trend for all businesses to embrace. The company is successfully leveraging the internet to generate interest in its products, engage consumers in the the design process, and tap into the collective wisdom of the crowd to pick the right products to produce.
More and more businesses are utilizing community based design as a strategy for success. Because of the global reach of the web, innovation can now be driven in large part by the user community. Consumers want to be in control. They want to be engaged, and they want companies to listen to them. Technology makes this all possible.
As this trend begins to permeate into other segments of the economy, this will create new and exciting opportunites for collaboration between companies and clients. From what is on television, to what is in the grocery store, to which concerts come to your city, to what your kids get for Christmas. The world is more and more about the wants and needs of the consumer.
Do you think your business is just too complicated to embrace this model? Think again. In a global economy with seemingly infinite options, engaging the consumer is no longer an afterthougth. Rather it will become the central thought for business success.
How could you begin to tap into the collective wisdom of your clients and that of the world to transform your business?
Crowd Sourcing Turns Business On Its Head : NPR
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David,
Boy, you’re bringing back memories. I used to obsess over drawing the old Jordan’s (typically the ‘86-’88 ones).
Nice find with RYZ, I’ll have to check them out.