User contribution can tackle creative challenges from the technical to the artistic. The emblematic example of contribution in R&D is open source software, such as the Linux operating system and the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox web browser, which is created and regularly upgraded by communities of unpaid volunteer developers. (This low-cost model makes Mozilla one of the rare nonprofits that is highly “profitable.”)

In the creative arts, Threadless, a company that manufactures T-shirts, relies on a community of volunteer designers and artists to submit designs and a community of customers to select those that will go into production. Both of the user groups, as well as the company, benefit. The designers get free exposure for their work and a chance at monetary compensation: They receive $2,500 plus a percentage of sales if their design is chosen by Threadless customers. The customers get distinctive T-shirt designs that they have collectively selected. Threadless gets inexpensive design services and an unusually engaged customer base that snaps up the T-shirts it produces, minimizing stale inventory, price promotions, and other margin-eroding practices.

Note that the Threadless user contribution system is subtly different from customer innovation approaches like crowdsourcing, which are used with success by Dell, Starbucks, and other companies. Crowdsourcing is not a user contribution system in the pure sense, because the company stands between the input and the output. For example, it sifts through people’s ideas for new products and services, selects ones to pursue, and then invests the time and expense needed to develop them. 

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