Client Questions

What kind of projects does Boom Ideanet host?

We address a spectrum of projects, ranging from promotion or product development ideas to tv commercials, from design or naming projects to brand campaign platforms, from the traditional to the digital/social. We’ve hosted projects that play out in 48 hours, but most assignments have a turnaround time of 7 to 14 days. We’ve had award pools as small as $1500 and as large as $25,000.

For what brands has Boom Ideanet worked?

Boom has managed ideasourcing projects for FORTUNE 400 national retailers, consumer package goods brands, businesses in the health care field, production companies, and more. We can share more of that information inside our login.

I’m a business. Why should I have Boom develop ideas or advertising?

When you work with Boom Ideanet, you’ll get a volume of quality ideas developed by vetted, creative talents at a fair cost. You can have a project-based relationship, rather than an agency-of-record relationship. You can get your ideas produced at a favorable cost as well. You can work with a nimble, knowledgeable, responsive, low-overhead company. The last thing we are is rigid. Throw almost any challenge at us and “we’ll figure it out.”

What does it cost for a business to hire Boom Ideanet?

Here goes that age-old answer: It depends. On the nature of the project, scope of the project, timeline, etc. Once we’ve defined your project, we’ll propose an award structure and a fee for tapping into the network. We’ll be happy to design an ideasourcing plan specific to your challenge and budget. Tapping this cognitive power will cost you more than hiring a freelance team, but a lot less than staffing your own in-house creative department or hiring on an agency-of-record. And don’t forget, following on the heels of ideasourcing, we can discuss execution of the winning idea.

What does a business gain by using the Boom Ideanet approach?

Boom Ideanet has broken up the conventional creative structure and to invite a larger, ever-changing pool of talent to get involved on assignments. The network knows no boundaries and is populated with talents from across the US and reaching around the globe. As a result, clients are offered a set of ideas that come from veteran thinkers, as well as from those who come at brand challenges from an utterly fresh perspective. It’s a low-risk, high-reward proposition for businesses. And for talent, for that matter.

What if more than one talent submits the same or similar idea?

This happens. Engaged minds think alike. Sometimes. We try to be sensitive to similarity in ideas. We’ve split awards. We’ve multiplied the awards. We’ve do everything in our power to be fair.
The very name of Boom came from the network. Our very first brief was to name the company. We got hundreds of ideas. Three different talents entered names with Boom in them. We chose to pay all three talents equally.
We’d like to think that we’re always fair about this. And our clients want to be fair too. No one’s out to trample on or abuse or deny anyone’s intellectual property here. We’re as transparent as we can be and as fair and as reasonable as we can be.

What do you mean by “cognitive surplus?”

Well, we owe that reference to Clay Shirky. You can learn more about him and his idea on our connections page. You might also read his book Here Comes Everybody, which has a lot to say about the way the world thinks about production today as well as about our untapped cognitive power.
But here’s a quick example of what we consider the “cognitive surplus,” and the kind of choice we invite you to make regarding the way you put your own brain power to use. Every day, we fun-loving humans invest 300,000,000 minutes playing Angry Birds, according to Southwest Airline’s January 2012 issue of Spirit. (I’m sure that’s a great game, much like Spider Solitaire or Words with Friends.  But frankly, I’ve never engaged in any of those pastimes. ) All those minutes, every single day equal 24 hours of unproductive mental distraction EVERY HOUR! Mr. Shirky suggests that if we reapply a the time we assign to watching television programming, we could expand our knowledge base by 2,000 wikipedias every year. (Check it out, about 5:22 min in on this Clay Shirky video). We’re going to go out on a limb here and proclaim that contributing to wikipedia is a more worthy use of your incredible brain than playing Angry Birds … at least part of the time. And so could be your participation in Boom Ideanet.
Our position is that the Boom Ideanet approach can work because we believe there is a sufficient, motivated and now mobilized group of folks out there would like to apply what at times may be idle brain power in more productive ways. No harm in that.

Creator Questions

How do I join the network?

There’s no charge to become a member of BOOM IDEANET® . Registration is easy and only takes a few minutes. We’ll ask you to provide some information about yourself, including a link to examples of your creative work. You don’t have to be a professional to be in the network, but we do expect you to be able to demonstrate that you can bring disciplined thinking to a challenge.

Click here to Register

Once you have registered, we’ll review your application and get back to you, almost always within 24 hours. You’ll also be required to download, sign and return the Non-Disclosure Agreement by email, fax or postal service. Once we have your NDA, you’ll receive an email that shows that we’ve activated your account. You can log in, review any current briefs and get started.

How do I participate in a project?

Once your membership has been activated, you’ll be able to login and browse Challenges. We’ll also notify you by email when a new Challenge is posted. You can then visit the site, log in and review the brief, the compensation and timeline. When you’re ready to enter a Challenge, you log in to your account, insert your idea in the form provided and enter it before the expiration date on the brief.

How much can I earn?

Almost every brief has a unique awards structure, depending on the deliverables. The awards are generally on par or better than current freelance rates in the larger markets. Boom Ideanet is set up to award fairly. You always know what you can earn on each project prior to entering ideas.

How do I get paid?

When you win, we send you invoicing instructions and pay you promptly; based on the exchange of appropriate IRS paperwork, even if you’re overseas. You’ll receive a 1099 from Boom Ideanet in that tax year, (presuming you earn over $600 US).
While some crowdsourcing businesses work on a “winner-takes-all” basis, Boom tries to share the award dollars, generally offering compensation for finalists, as well as winners. We often assign a group of “pay-to-play” talents. These talents are guaranteed compensation, regardless of the outcome.  We try to pass around pay-to-play assignments. In other award scenarios, we offer a lower guarantee to a higher number of creators. We test different structures and always spell out compensation as clearly as possible.
Of course, we want to pay fairly, improving and leveling the playing field for freelance compensation. Another goal is to break the drawn-out payment cycle most freelancers experience, where they often wait far longer than 30 days to be paid. Generally the waiting period depends on how long the client takes to select the winning idea or ideas, which at times involves going through research. But as soon as the idea is selected, we do everything possible to turn your award payment swiftly.

What about the legal stuff?

An Important point to make here: Many sites require you to transfer ownership of your idea to them at the moment of submission. Which is exactly what the term suggests. You submit your thinking to them. At Boom, you retain the rights to your intellectual property until it is purchased by the client. But, we do need to take steps to protect confidential information and to assure our clients that you are providing original work.

So, here are the official Terms of Entry:

Entry of your ideas constitutes your agreement with these terms of entry. You will retain intellectual property rights to any ideas you suggest … unless you win. By entering ideas, you agree that, if chosen, you will release the rights to that idea to the Boom client for exclusive and unlimited use for the compensation outlined. Your privacy will be respected and your work held confidential. If your idea is not accepted, you agree that you will not promote that idea independently to a competitive brand or business in the category, or their agent(s) for a period of 18 months from the date of rejection by this entity. You also stipulate that any idea entered is original and not appropriated or plagiarized from any other source. You affirm that you are not employed by a competitor of the Boom client for which the brief is being executed or their agency and that you have no conflict of interest regarding the entry of your ideas.

You represent and warrant that any work that you provide to BOOM shall be original to you and created solely by you and does not infringe upon the copyright or any other right of any other person or entity, and that you have not previously granted any rights to such work to any other person or entity. You further represent and warrant that use of the work by BOOM or the BOOM Client in any manner, media or venue whatsoever, including, without limitation, for purposes of advertising and promotion of the BOOM Client’s products and services, shall not violate any third party rights.

You hereby agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless BOOM and the BOOM Client from and against any claims and damages (including, without limitation, reasonable attorneys’ fees and settlement costs) resulting from a claimed breach by you of any of the provisions hereunder or resulting from any allegation that the work or your services in connection with the work infringe or violate any third party rights.

What kind of projects does Boom Ideanet host?

We address a spectrum of projects, ranging from promotion or product development ideas to tv commercials, from design or naming projects to brand campaign platforms, from the traditional to the digital/social. We’ve hosted projects that play out in 48 hours, but most assignments have a turnaround time of 7 to 14 days. We’ve had award pools as small as $1500 and as large as $25,000.

Why should I join Boom and give you my ideas on a speculative basis?

We do our best to diminish the degree of “spec” work by assigning creative talent and offering compensation to multiple creators. We also almost always allow anyone in the network to contribute ideas without guaranteed compensation. Some creatives welcome that situation. But Boom isn’t for everyone. If you are against doing spec work, then you should forget that Boom Ideanet exists. We totally accept that position. The AIGA has long spoken out against spec work. We provide some links to their commentary on our Connections page. If you’d like the opportunity to think about a brand or challenge you don’t normally come across; if you largely do print work or web work and you’d like a chance to write a TV spot; if you just like to compete for the thrill of it; if you just have some extra time or brain power on your hands and you’d like to put it to productive use, join Boom Ideanet. Your thinking will get a fair shot and if your idea is chosen, you’ll be paid fairly for it. If your idea is not chosen, at least you’ve had the experience and may have some work to put in your book. Every idea goes to the client. We do not filter out entries. So your thinking gets an equal chance alongside all the other ideas.

What if more than one talent submits the same or similar idea?

This happens. Engaged minds think alike. Sometimes. We try to be sensitive to similarity in ideas. We’ve split awards. We’ve multiplied the awards. We’ve do everything in our power to be fair.
The very name of Boom came from the network. Our very first brief was to name the company. We got hundreds of ideas. Three different talents entered names with Boom in them. We chose to pay all three talents equally.
We’d like to think that we’re always fair about this. And our clients want to be fair too. No one’s out to trample on or abuse or deny anyone’s intellectual property here. We’re as transparent as we can be and as fair and as reasonable as we can be.

How do I protect my ideas/intellectual property from being used unfairly?

Almost every other crowdsourcing business requires you to give up your intellectual property at the time of entry. Boom does not. Boom Ideanet is very sensitive to the idea of intellectual property. We’ve made the terms of entry as clear as possible. If your idea is NOT chosen and not compensated for, then it belongs to you and we promise not to appropriate it. If we decide later on that we’d like to use something you entered, then we will only do so after contacting you and agreeing to compensation.
This whole business model operates on an honor system. You’ll have to trust us to respect your ideas and to compensate you for use of any idea. We trust that you won’t share the brief or the contents or substance of our client’s marketing plans with a competitor. We trust that you will not attempt to sell your idea to a competitor for a period of 18 months. We want to be sure you understand that prior to entering ideas, not after the fact. Finally, we have only our integrity to stand on, with talent and with clients.