Hey Designers, Quit Talking Down To Business Owners
[Disclaimer: We have used crowdSPRING to have our logo created as well as some of our site design. Both winners were established designers with their own firms. That has nothing to do with the point of this article.]
One of the panels held at this year’s SXSW was “Is Spec Work Evil? – The Online Creative Community Speaks” You can see some video of it here. It had a great panel of intelligent individuals speaking from both sides of the fence with passion about their stance.
Mike Samson crowdspring.com
David Carson davidcarsondesign
Jeff Howe Editor, Wired Magazine
Jeffrey Kalmikoff Chief Creative Officer, skinnyCorp/Threadless
Jeremiah Owyang Analyst, Forrester
This topic has been hashed out repeatedly and will continue to be debated for months to come by smarter people then me. The point of this post is to let designers know that some of the statements you are making are immediately turning people off to what you have to say and you’ll need to address this if you truly want your side of the argument heard.
As a business owner, here is my advice to designers and design firms when supporting your argument on crowdsourcing; STOP TALKING DOWN TO THE BUSINESS OWNERS!
The minute you take the stance of “the ignorant business owners don’t know what they want or need”, do you think I’m still listening to what you have to say or thinking of how many ways I can tell you what you can go do to yourself? If you guessed the latter, you’re correct.
As I listened to statements like David Carson’s (around 5:20 into the video) “the judges [business owners listing projects] are selected because they contributed a small amount of money which doesn’t mean that they’re qualified or have any experience in judging graphic design…”, it immediately irritates me and makes me wonder where he gets off judging what other people are capable of. I’ve worked at large organizations and dealt with various design/coding companies for different size projects. I’m sure that Dave’s design firm is very good at what they do and adds value to their customers but we both know that he would not give my current startup the time of day for the budget we have. Also, what Dave calls a small amount of money is a very large amount of money to bootstrapped startups or people wanting to try something on the side with their personal savings.
When Jeffrey Kalmikoff says (around 6:18) “…[crowdsourcing sites] pair C and D level companies with inexperienced designers…” I think I understand the context of where he’s coming from (can’t be certain as the discussion was edited down) but I can assure you that no entrepreneur or small business looks at themselves as a “C” or “D” level company.
These are just examples from this video but the same types of comments are made by designers in almost every discussion on this topic. There are many smart, hard-working designers out there with valid arguments supporting their point of view. The thing is, the second you talk down about the people/businesses that use or think about using crowdsourcing, which I assume you look at as prospects, you’ve lost your argument because nobody’s listening to anything you say after that. If you truly believe what you say, then I don’t know why you take the time to argue over a customer base you don’t respect or want.
As startups, we’re fully aware that most of us are small and not applying the same budget to design that large company’s do. We also probably don’t have a budget or plan that currently requires a long term partnership or design strategy. However, most of us are experienced business people that do know how to run companies and know that you need to prioritize goals, tasks, and budgets accordingly in order to be successful and you can never have everything you want, right now, within your current budget. So we make the decisions necessary to get us from point A to point B.
Long story, short; designers are digging their own holes when they talk down to businesses. Keep your arguments above the belt and you’ll have a much better chance at making your point.
Picture titled, “Snooty” by Travelin’ Librarian on Flickr.
