Social Product Development Part Duex (?)

A new Social Product Development Site has cropped up and I’m wondering what the hell is going on. Does the world really need a web based solution to get our ideas to market? Isn’t this bordering on sacrilege for we independent designers?

The business model is interesting... Simplified: For a nominal fee, you may submit a concept to the Social Product Development Community for review and a vote on the market potential. If they approve the concept for development, you surrender the rights to the product in exchange for a stipend based on the sales of that product.

I have to admit that the product developer in me loathes the very idea of such a service. I even had reservations about writing about it here lest I kick the viral marketing can further down the road for them. (Notice that I have not named them. Yet.)

What is the tangible value here? Who’s the target audience? Are they just a parasitic vehicle to fleece the inventor out of his/her intellectual property and potential/deserved profits? Can the business model really work? Might it be doomed as a failed experiment, from which the value of my business is bolstered? I find myself simultaneously intrigued by the new(ish) approach and wishing bad juju upon them. But, let’s investigate before we bekon the web-based executioners to the fore.

First, how many of us have ideas rattling around in our own cerebral attics? I know that I have a rather robust folder full of concepts that I would like to bring to market. Ideas that, for one reason or another, have languished. Would these ideas be more likely to breach the light of day if I just handed over all the development headaches, distribution issues, packaging design, revisionary burdens, marketing, and so on, to an entity that will assume all the risk? Maybe. Maybe these ideas are better served in the hands of a Social Product Development Service as they may actually get to market and generate both supplemental income (I have a lot of hobbies that need to be fed) and make some consumers’ life just little bit more convenient. Maybe the poor slobs with THE next big idea, but no means for which to deliver the product beyond the dank confines of their basement workshop, will be liberated from draining their children’s college fund. Not to mention avoid the demise of domestic tranquility.

If you are a designer or product developer, you already have an idea of how many ill fated concepts make it to a successful market delivery. The process is akin to newly hatched leatherback turtles clumsily sprinting for the shoreline through a gauntlet of winged predators. i.e. Patent and product liability attorneys, manufacturers who can’t deliver, underestimated tooling and raw material costs, poorly chosen veins of distribution, etc. And even if the little amphibians DO reach the watery haven, they still have to contend with yet more predatory behavior… Asian IP bandits, export duties that eat into profitability, spare parts inventory to satisfy warranties, shrinkage due to defective production issues and employee theft…

What was once an idea meant for greatness, is now a tired old shoe discarded at the side of the road. Passerby’s left only to wonder about its former owner. And where is this owner? Divorced of course. And with children inquiring about deep fried culinary accompaniments from their clients instead of the attending that Ivy League institution they were accepted to.

So, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic. Maybe this is just what our industry needs. Or maybe the ideas that this service will attract should have been left to die on the vine in the 1st place. Remain in the cobwebs of that dank basement workshop as it were. We surely don’t have a shortage of really bad ideas out there. You’ve seen the USB engagement ring right? Now there’s an idea that never should have leaked from gray matter and a product developer that is in need of a public lashing with the cord of a… wait for it… USB toaster. (Received as a wedding gift of course.)

This Social Product Development concept also smacks of the dot com money grab of the 90’s. And we all know how that turned out. Maybe this idea is the t-rex of this still burgeoning generation of social networking and will live beyond the next evolutionary metamorphosis. But, lest we forget history, even the biggest carnivores were killed off by glacial reality. Charles Darwin’s truisms are strong in a capitalistic society.

I dunno. The value of this service remains to be seen. (The site is pretty new) And I’ll sit on that folder full of ideas for a bit longer before I’ll let them join the ranks of products that end up at the give-and-take section of my local transfer station before I’ve enjoyed nickel-one in returns.