THE CASE FOR LETTING YOUR CUSTOMERS DESIGN YOUR PRODUCTS

Why limit your company’s brainpower to your employees? Here’s how to tap the crowd to research new concepts, innovate, and design new products or services.

Brazil’s most popular automaker, Fiat, sought a design for its 2009 concept vehicle, the Fiat Mio. Rather than turning inward to its core team of designers and engineers to come up with the new look, the company turned outward­—and let the world decide how the car would look, feel, and drive. By crowdsourcing the design of the car through its website, fueled by a viral marketing campaign, the Fiat Mio became the world’s first fully-crowdsourced vehicle, debuting at the Sao Paulo International Automobile Show to rave reviews. All in all, the car’s design took into account some 10,000 suggestions from people in more than 160 countries.

Here’s a look at how your firm can learn learn to innovate using the wisdom of the crowd.