crowdsourcing

3 posts

Crowdsourcing: Where Should I Go on Vacation?

beach

My husband and I have been married for almost 9 years and we have never gone on a proper honeymoon. We’ve been lucky that we have gone on a few snow vacations out West, and we go visit my family in Panama every few years, but we decided to start putting away some money so we can go on a mini vacation/honeymoon. The problem is that there are too many options: do we go to an all-inclusive in the Caribbean where we can lay on the beach for a few days and order drinks that come with mini-umbrellas? Do we go somewhere fun in the US we’ve never been to before, like Chicago? Do we go back to New York, Key West, or San Francisco?  Continue reading

Making Peace with the Wisdom of the Crowd

(Courtesy of Tom Taylor via Flickr)

Being a graphic designer, there is probably nothing that raises my hackles more than the idea of crowdsourcing. For me, it is yet another thing helping to monetarily and creatively devalue my career in this time where no one has any budget for anything. Yes, I admit it, I’m bitter and this may or may not be sort of a rant. I went to school for design and have spent many years trying to get people to understand that it is not about drawing nice pictures but helping a client communicate his or her mission the most effective way possible. Now, with lack of budgets and people continuing to undervalue my service profession, I am getting more and more squeezed out. Rather than a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant whose service people seek out, I am becoming no different from someone whose job has been shipped overseas. So how is it possible to make peace with something that threatens my very livelihood? Whether I like it or not, this is not a new phenomenon nor will it go away and how should I learn to make it work for me?

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