Over a year ago, I participated in a charity auction for my good friend (and now podcast partner), Jennifer Leggio. Also taking part in the auction were social media smarties, Chris Brogan, Geoff Livingston, Greg Verdino and Joe Jaffe. The goal of the auction was to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society with the five of us offering up a variety of speaking/consulting services to the highest bidder. In my case, a company called Genius Rocket ended up being the highest bidder.

I’ll spare you the details on the back and forth discussion that the EVP of marketing at Genius Rocket, Peter LaMotte, and I had over how I would make good on my engagment but the net net was the video below (and a wrapper post) so that you would have a little context.

To Peter’s pleasant surprise, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking and engaging in the art of crowdsourcing based on my participation in the We Are Smarter Than Me project. To that end, I was quite at ease sharing my opinions of how crowdsourcing can benefit business — especially when it comes to outsourcing some elements of the creative process.

During the video, I cover the following topics:

• Why I’m bullsing on crowdsourcing
• Companies that are doing a good job at crowdsourcing
• Reasons why crowdsourcing is becoming more mainstream
• Considerations for doing crowdsourcing right
• Reasons why I would consider using companies like Genius Rocket

[Update 11/23]
[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AYGxmEoA]
Following the interview that Peter and I did back in March at SXSW, Genius Rocket announced the launch of a new offering called GRSelect. What I like about this new product is that it addresses the issue of quality when it comes to crowdsourcing (something we covered during the video interview). You can see the details on how this works in the diagram below but the essence of GRSelect is that it brings the customer into the production process.

From Genius Rocket’s blog announcing the product…

The new model answers the most common requests of the creative crowdsourcing world; higher awards, more feedback, and less risk. No artist that participates in a GRSelect project will go uncompensated for his or her efforts. At the same time, clients will now be active collaborators in the creative process.

While I haven’t seen GRSelect in action, I like this approach a lot.

So what about you? Are you using crowdsourcing in your business? If not, what’s holding you back?