Innovation Not Allowed on Kickstarter?

Kickstarter Logo - No Innovation AllowedI’m in the throes of bringing The Nine Innovation Roles to life in an interactive card game for use in workshops and team meetings, and as someone who writes about harnessing external talent, it only made sense that I should post a project on Kickstarter to engage in a bit of crowdfunding to fund:

  • A design contest on CrowdSpring or 99Designs
  • The costs of an initial production run of the Nine Innovation Roles card decks.

Imagine my surprise when Kickstarter rejected my non-fiction publishing project submission.

Is innovation not allowed on Kickstarter?

I re-read the guidelines, submitted an appeal figuring there must have been some sort of mistake, and waited for a favorable response.

But, again I was surprised to receive notification that my appeal was rejected.

An email asking for clarification, in advance of this article, went unanswered.

So I am left to assume that yes, innovation is not allowed on Kickstarter. I should have seen the writing on the wall when I did a search for “innovation” on Kickstarter and it returned a nearly empty set of search results.

I guess crowdfunding the publishing of a tool to help make teams and organizations more successful at innovation wasn’t sexy or artsy enough for Kickstarter.

But, the news isn’t all doom and gloom.

Some of you may remember that I put out an open call a couple of weeks ago asking for opinions on whether I should post my design contest on CrowdSpring or 99Designs. I also tweeted the same question, and well, CrowdSpring answered one of my tweets and the folks at 99Designs didn’t. And as someone who also writes about social business, guess who I’m trusting to host the design contest for The Nine Innovation Roles card decks?

You guessed it, CrowdSpring.

Luckily, unlike Kickstarter, the folks at CrowdSpring believe in supporting innovation projects and I’ve launched a $500 design contest on their platform that is open to the world here:

Nine Innovation Roles Crowdspring Project

I really look forward to seeing how the global community of graphic designers will interpret the Nine Innovation Roles and help me breathe life into them and create a beautiful, fun deck of cards to be used along with some interactive exercises in workshops and team meetings to increase the innovation success of teams or organizations.

Oh, and if you’re looking to fund your innovation project, you might want to invest your time somewhere else other than Kickstarter – where innovation is not allowed.

I will now be considering some secondary platforms for my crowdfunding project. Do you have any favorites?

UPDATE: I’ve launched a crowdfunding project on IndieGoGo after being rejected by Kickstarter.

Happy innovating (and designing)! 🙂

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6 thoughts on “Innovation Not Allowed on Kickstarter?

  1. Pingback: Nine Innovation Roles Card Deck Coming Soon | Braden Kelley

  2. 3TW3 Y3D3

    Wow so you just bad mouthing Kickstater because you feel rejected? What’s your definition of creativity? You were seeking a freeloading yet you’re here trying to rile the hivemind. Remember they have standards and they have to choose from a ton of creative ideas.

    You either didn’t pitch yours well enough or there’s an element of scam within. I just checked your Indiegogo post and sadly enough you dont even present a prototype of your lousy idea. I’ll continue to monitor your post and see if any douchebag will back a dime to your abstract shitheaded idea for which you can’t afford publishing a prototype for backer to at least know what they are paying for.

    Moron!

    Reply
    1. admin

      Awesome!

      No Monday would be a success without at least one person calling me a moron.

      I can check that off my list for today.

      There weren’t any prototypes on IndieGoGo because my CrowdSpring design contest is currently under way.

      You can see some of the potential designs here:

      https://bradenkelley.com/2012/04/help-pick-nine-innovation-roles-card-design/

      Glad I’ve unlocked at least one person’s passion today.

      And for the record, I’m not bad-mouthing Kickstarter, I’m simply making some observations about how they operate as someone who writes about crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and open innovation. IndieGoGo had no problem with my project, and as we go along I’ll continue to add to the entry the final design, a video (once I remove the Kickstarter references), etc.

      @innovate

      Reply
    1. admin

      Thank you for comment Sophia. Couldn’t find your web site reference.

      Not sure what I’m feeling entitled to. Kickstarter may have failed to see the promise of a project, but the design community is engaging with it on CrowdSpring

      http://www.crowdspring.com/project/2326202_fun-tarot-style-card-deck-for-nine-innovation-roles/

      and IndieGoGo was happy to pick it up.

      As someone who writes about crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and open innovation, I couldn’t imagine not crowdsourcing the design for the project and trying to raise the money to make it a reality using crowdfunding.

      Otherwise, why am I writing about these things? 😉

      @innovate

      Reply
  3. Pingback: Winning Design – Nine Innovation Roles Interactive Card Deck | Braden Kelley

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