A producer crowdsourcing project

Swarovski, a jewelry producer, wanted to attract consumers to devote discretionary time to designing novel and fashionable jewelry. With the help of Hyve, a company that specializes in building online problemsolving sites, Swarovski created a crowdsourcing site that offered volunteer participants the opportunity to develop their own jewelry designs, to showcase them, to comment on and vote on the designs of others, to upload their avatars and photos, and to be included as a trendsetter in a book about trends in watch design (Fuller, Hutter, and Faullant 2011). Participants had no expectation of seeing their designs produced and no expectation of payments related to commercialization of their designs. Nonetheless, the initiative to attract participation from the household sector was successful. More than 3,000 designs were uploaded by more than 1,700 participants.

Fuller (2010) surveyed contributors to ten different virtual co-creation projects hosted by Hyve, the subjects including designing a baby carriage, furniture, mobile phones, backpacks, and jewelry. He found that the motivators of "intrinsic innovation interest” and curiosity were most important to survey respondents: "In contrast to open source communities and user innovations, where members engage in innovation tasks because they can benefit from using their innovation, consumers engage in [Hyve] virtual new product developments mainly because they consider the engagement as a rewarding experience” (Fuller 2010, 99).