Co-Creating What We Wear… and More?

Imagine investing “just” $50 in a clothing company so you could co-design the togs they make - and you can buy. My first thought was it sounds like committee work at its worst. Yet that’s exactly what a firm called nvohk started doing.

Another clothing company, Threadless also uses this method and still another with a slightly more professional look, Zazzle (you can make money from your designs here). There’s also a contest to design shoes.

They are “crowdsourcing.”

Elaine Polvinen thinks this approach will spread through the fashion world. In the podcast interview at movingfrommetowe.com, Aaron Strout tells us when he thinks this method may succeed – for us as consumers and/or as start-up entrepreneurs. And he covers the pitfalls. Strout is “citizen marketer” at Mzinga.

Mzinga developed and maintains the site for a crowdsourced book called We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business "led" by Barry Libert and Jon Spector.

Now, they (oops, “we”) are working on the follow-up book. Recently Strout spoke on a panel called The Power of Crowdsourcing, at WebGuild’s Web 2.0 Conference south of me in Santa Clara. His co-panelists are an experienced mix: Anil Rathi of Idea Crossing, Michael Sikorsky of Cambrian House and moderator, Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research.

Discover crowdsourcing projects popping up for situations as diverse as locating interstellar dust particles, owning a team, selling photos, classify a million galaxies, avoid traffic jams and co-create music CDs, political slogans and campaign videos or most any kind of project.

This is good news for inventive, creative people to use their best talents with others - and perhaps make money, change an industry or how we view the world and learn from each other.

Now, who's the "future you?"  Mmm. How will you be describing yourself say five years from now? Or at least one part of you. From the Greek word “opiso” meaning “hereafter” April Groves crafted the word “opi”: Picture the future you, “written in the present tense.”

This seems to me to be a powerful way to visualize an end goal for my life by writing it as if it is true now. That description can be my daily touchstone.

April’s Opi: "After many wildly successful years in real estate, I have left my brokerage to my partner... It was the only way to accommodate the bookings for the next book tour and speaking schedule. Not to mention the trip my husband and I have planned with the children to Europe."

April tapped Robyn McMaster for her Opi: "Today, I'm checking in to discuss new ideas with scholars currently retreating at the MITA International Brain Based Center, now headquartered in a three story building adjacent to the Lodge at Woodcliffe. Dr. Ellen Weber and I are working with 35 international brain based scholars, currently completing Executive MITA Brain Based Certification."

Robyn tapped me to offer my Opi. Spontaneously written, here’s "Future Me:"

I am facilitating collaboration-centered (rather than design) charrettes around the world to hone “Me2We” methods with other’s insights (perhaps you) – ways two or more people can accomplish more together than they can on their own. Our Moving From Me To We blog + podcast is now a crowdsourced global community that, among other tools, creates tagged video vignettes of success stories. With the input of Paul Hawken’s Wiser Earth team we’ve created the third evolution of the online social network where people are sharing and collaborating and voting on favorite on Me2We methods. Out annual and local gatherings are a great way for people to finally meet face-to-face.

One of my favorite outcomes are the growth of partnerships between extremely unlikely allies. Our alliances with other communities such as Renaissance Weekend, The Ted Conference seems to have speed such diverse alliances. We've interviewed many of you and many of you have interviewed each other and wound up collaborating. What a joy it's been to watch. Robyn's been a real inspiration along the way.

Perhaps our sharing our Opis and encouraging others to write them will evoke entrainment to bolster our way to making the next chapters of our lives the memorable adventure stories we seek.

In the spirit of Me2We, I'm tagging

• Ken Thompson, Swarmteams

• Diane Danielson, Downtown Womens Club

• Aaron Strout, Mzinga

• Ori Brafman, The Starfish and the Spider and Sway

• David Sibbet of The Grove

• Aliza Freud, shespeaks

"Visualization and belief in a pattern of reality activates the creative power of realization." - A. L. Lindall

"We lift ourselves by our thought. We climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always everywhere." - Orison Swett Marden