Smartlife

You can crowdsource just about anything on the Internet. You can crowdsource your design project. You can crowdsource legal advice. And, yes, you can crowdsource your knowledge, too.

Part of this through something called a knowledge network. Not to be confused with the television network of the same name, the concept of a knowledge network can be understood a few different ways. First, you could think of it as a collection of resources that are then integrated into one another to provide the most useful information to users…

Ah, the Internet: the world’s greatest double-edged sword. It offers such an incredible wealth of information, but it could also lead you completely astray. And you don’t want to be led astray when it comes to something as important as proper legal advice.

While it may be true that some of the legal advice online is potentially worse than useless, much of it has done a great deal of good for people who can’t afford to have a team of lawyers at their beck and call. Thankfully, it is also…

Financial decisions can be the most difficult to make. A wrong move can have major consequences for you and your family. That makes it crucial to get as much information about finances as possible. Over the past several years, online communities have proven to be a valuable resource: you can crowdsource important parts of your finances, using other people who have more knowledge or skills to help you decide on a next step and carry it out.

These sites provide a variety of tools, communities and help with your finances.…

If you’re unfamiliar with the practice of crowdsourcing design work, check out this post and then zip on back.

Since first reading Sean Johnson’s excellent post on how to crowdsource designs last April, I’ve had the experience of running several design contests. 99designs has been my preferred venue, but there are others out there such as crowdSPRING and LogoTournament.com.

So what has my experience taught me? Here I share:

1. Talent hub. If you need…

On the surface, it seems like filing a patent shouldn’t be too difficult: you describe your idea, fill out forms, and send it off to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). But there’s a very important step missing from that process: the search for prior art. When filing a patent, it’s important to be sure that no one else has filed a patent on the idea previously, as well as to be aware of any related patents that another company may have filed. Such a search can require a…

Heading into the marketplace, you’ll find a lot of terrific products that get lost in the fold due largely to poor branding. On the flip side, you’ll also find a lot of mediocre products that have skyrocketed to monumental success, largely thanks to great branding and marketing.

In this way, spending time to create and develop a strong brand is well worth the investment. The conventional route would be either to come up with a brand name on your own or to hire an advertising firm to come up with…