Jason Spector.com

I want to start this week (and this month) off with a dose of inspiration. Derek Silvers gave a brief but insightful talk on TED about challenging our assumptions and how the opposite may be equally true. I really like how his light demeanor and relevant examples easily demonstrates the far-reaching potential of this concept.

I certainly don’t want to make this out to be the one true event that challenges our world view and moves us into a new age of enlightenment. That would be silly. But I do think it’s message could open a few eyes in the fields many of us work in, such as design, marketing, innovation, sales and business.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with fellow Pittsburgher, twitter pal and social media maven Michelle Chmielewski, otherwise known as the The Observing Participant.

We discussed many topics about crowdsourcing and social media, but the focus was primarily on how successful crowdsourcing coincides with a healthy respect for the “Three C’s” – the Client, the Crowd and the Competition.