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Boom Speaks Out In Favor Of A Fair Trade Apple

By June 11, 2014March 10th, 2017News

The coffee, cocoa trade and a few other precious commodities have had success drawing attention to “Fair Trade” labor practices as a way to market their products. But by and large, responsibility is a pretty mundane position to leverage in the “cool” world of branding. However, it can be a deeply meaningful one. And Boom Ideanet, which strives to host an ethical platform for the performance of work in the “crowdsourcing” space, applauds Apple for promoting “supplier responsibility.”

We talk about hosting an “ethical crowdsourcing platform.” When we do so, many listeners challenge us: “Why would a client care about that? Clients just want good stuff at a cheaper price. They don’t care how you get it. Or how many people are compensated.”

It is Boom’s position that clients in fact should care about who does the work, who is compensated and how fairly. Apple is helping to support and even define such a position. By investing their own brand cachet in that message, they license other brands to support or express such a position, as well.

While many purchasers care about “cool” to one degree or another, many also care ultimately whether or not someone was taken advantage of in its manufacture or distribution or marketing. Legitimate — responsible — brands do not want to be seen as exploitative. Such practices, when they come to light, reflect on the brand, on its trustworthiness.

Customers and brands reflect each other. And in an increasingly transparent, report-able world, we can see behind the curtain like never before. In the past, Apple has been targeted for unethical labor practices, as have many other brands (NikeLululemon, come to mind.). But Apple has chosen to address the issue head on. It is that proactive stance that Boom advocates.

Many crowdsourcing platforms trumpet how the client gets hundreds of ideas and then pays only one “winner.” Maybe that works now and then. After all, it is true that somewhere on this surprisingly connected planet there is someone who’ll do something for almost any amount. Consider www.fiverr.com. But that represents a churn model, not a sustainable model. And like Fair Trade Coffee arrangements, we’re better off the world over when we operate sustainable business models.

Candidly, Boom does rely on an element of competition. Participants always know the ground rules going in and choose whether to compete on the basis of their ideas or not. But Boom also compensates more contributors and pay out fees that align with the freelance market. It’s a more responsible approach that affects the value of work, the value of intellectual property, the value of the individual. We trust it’s more appealing to creative problem-solvers who are seeking challenges and while it does cost clients more, the activity reflects more positively on their brand … and, we would argue, the quality of the ideas they get to consider. And award.

Of course, Boom Ideanet is a very different kind of business than Apple. We are not a designer-manufacturer. We are more of a designer-idea-generator. Apple might figure into an economic metric that measures the creation of jobs and Boom cares more about facilitating work than creating jobs. But we do engage a work force that is distributed around the world. Boom is a supplier and the laborers we engage are themselves suppliers.

In both businesses categories, there is still very much a role for respect, ethicality and dignity. We wish to play fair, as does Apple. The more we have Fair Trade Apples, the better. And Boom Ideanet will continue working to offer Fair Trade Crowdsourcing.