An Ingenious Way to Solicit Community Contributions, or, How to Replace the Screen for an Asus Laptop UL50AG
Last week one of my kids broke my ASUS laptop screen (she closed it while something was caught in the lid). At first I thought it would be the end of life for my laptop, but then I found that replacing a laptop screen was somewhat inexpensive (about $75 + shipping) and easy (according to this video). So I ordered a new screen from laptopscreen.com. After my order shipped, I also received this curious email from the company.
The email said that I would receive $30 instantly back from my purchase if I were to make a detailed video about how to install the new screen. The video had to be less than 10 minutes, and I had to post it to Youtube. If I posted to Vimeo as well, I would receive an additional $5. As far as guidelines for the video, they asked me to be specific with the the title, to include their company name in the description, to avoid using any music, to use good lighting, and to keep the camera still.
Their challenge intrigued me. Although I don’t make hardware-replacement type videos, I wanted the $35 back and decided to give it a try. Here’s my video:
Here’s the same video in Vimeo.
It’s not that exciting, but if you had an ASUS UL50AG model laptop and needed to replace the screen, I bet you would watch all 9 minutes of the video.
The kickback idea from LaptopScreen.com is rather ingenious, I think. First, it would be nearly impossible for any company to provide support on how to replace a laptop screen for the hundreds of different laptop brands and models.
Second, even if they could provide written instructions, most users are probably uncomfortable with the task and would gain more confidence in watching a video taken by a regular user (rather than a professional) in a home setting showing how to do it.
Third, all the links pointing back to laptopscreen.com are clever and legit SEO.
I don’t know if my video will meet the requirements they listed — there are a few guest appearances from Lucy, who broke the screen in the first place. And I started out using a screwdriver that was too big (I didn’t make a practice run or anything before replacing the screen). But I think it’s good enough for Youtube.
Also, I had been looking for some good video editing software for HD .MOV files for my Kodak Zi8 anyway, and Vegas Movie Studio HD worked pretty well. They also have an amazing starter tutorial, but I’ll have to cover that in another post.
Quite clever, to me it shows that the company knows the value of the how-to content, though others would note that the production costs of a 9:00 video should be quite greater than $35. Seems they have controls in place to ensure quality – I wonder what videos have already been submitted and if they’ll call off the “contest” for a particular model once a few videos meet all the criteria?
I’m reminded of a SXSWi session where a journalist interviewed Richard Rosenblatt from Demand Media. Someone in the audience mentioned the poor quality how-to videos that Demand Media used to have in their channels. What Demand Media found is they had to put many more quality controls and ended up having 17 rounds of edits and editors. That interview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8diEYt-g0xY though I’m not sure if the audience question period is included.
Great find!
Interesting video. Thanks for sending the link, Anne. I don’t know if they have quality controls. They are posted on youtube rather than on their own site, so that shields them from some responsibility for the content.
Hey, we missed seeing you at the Summit this year. What are you up to these days?
Nice video and certainly provides the viewer with enough confidence to tackle the task. Were any written instructions provided by LaptopScreen?
No, the new screen didn’t come with any written instructions whatsoever. I think this is because the screen was somewhat generic and would fit a number of different laptop models.
Ingenious indeed! High quality instructions are audience- and task-appropriate. Who knows the audience and the task better than someone who is the audience and is doing the task?
LaptopScreen is betting that they’ll get good documentation, even though some people might post crappy videos. I’d take that bet. I’m curious to know (as is Anne) how they ensure the quality of the videos. But I like their creative approach and their willingness to take risks.
I’ll only mention in passing the job that went unfilled because LaptopScreen chose crowdsourcing over hiring an in-house writer. It’s just further proof that, to survive in our profession, you have to broaden your skill set beyond being “just a writer.”
Good point about broadening the skill set beyond being just a writer. I definitely agree with that. Even if one is just a writer, this is video, so one would need video skills as well.
As a follow-up,
Laptopscreen.com wrote me this morning to say,
Definitely an interesting idea. And now I know what to do if my laptop screen ever breaks!
I think this is brilliant. It nicely sails between the two perils of community/crowd-sourced documentation.
I’ve expressed before my reservations about the concept of crowd-sourcing as it is often expressed — which is that a company attempts to get the crowd to create content for them, but then takes it in, reworks it, and makes it company property. This model strikes me as a violation of the notion of community, and likely to turn the community off contributing.
Community content (as opposed to crowd-sourced content) is created by members of the community for the benefit of the community, not for the benefit of the vendor. The people who create community content get two very basic satisfactions from the act: they get to help others, and they get to see their work appreciated in public. (The vendor benefits as well, of course, which is why a wise vendor will do all they can to foster the community without trying to own it or run it.)
The problem with community content, from a vendor perspective, is not quality control, but coverage. People may not cover all the subjects that need covering.
What is great about this model is that it creates a prompt and an incentive for members of the community to create content on a particular subject, while not taking ownership of it, and thus not violating the model of community, and leaving the basic satisfactions of contributing content to the community intact. (We should note that even if they do not decide to pay you for your video, the video is still on YouTube and Vimeo.)
As for quality, the beauty of this model is that they are not endorsing these videos (unless they decide to feature one on their own website) so quality control is left to the YouTube quality control system — caveat emptor and let the cream rise to the top.
Mind you, I would not put it past some clever litigation lawyer to find a way to construe the payment as an endorsement in the event of someone deciding to change their laptop screen while sitting in a bathtub with the laptop plugged in. One lawsuit and the whole model may get blown up, to the detriment of all concerned.
“The problem with community content, from a vendor perspective, is not quality control, but coverage. People may not cover all the subjects that need covering.”
I would argue this was a challenge facing all content creators – be they professionals or crowd.
I would agree, which is why I think tech writers should at least look at what the crowd is doing and ask themselves, if the crowd is covering this area, can I improve total coverage by addressing these other areas that the crowd isn’t covering?
I think tech writers often feel the urge to fix or improve on what the crowd is doing, or to use the crowd as an indicator of what the hot topics are, and then produce their own (possibly superior) content on those same hot topics. But is improving on the crowd really the most economically beneficial thing for company tech writers to do? The question at least deserves to be asked.
nice article. i am pleased tosee.
Hi Tom, I enjoyed your video. Nothing like seeing it done by others first before taking on the task yourself. And that it was done by a non-”techie” as we tech writers are sometimes called, shows it can be done by anyone with a little patience. Not to be too picky, but I was waiting for you to put back those little plastic thingies that covered the screws for the plastic housing. Did you put them back in, or like some of us, lose them so didn’t bother?
It was fun to watch!
Wow, what a great idea! I recently had to replace the speakers in a MacBook Pro, and the best written tutorial I found said to simply “be careful” when detaching a number of leads from the motherboard.
After snapping the first one, I went to YouTube to see if there were any “in action” videos, or tips on how to remove these connectors. Sure enough,
I found one that showed the proper safe way of doing it, and the rest of the work went off without a hitch.
Suffice it to say, if the original instructions had had more info in them about some of the really tricky connectors, I would have been in much better shape.
Thankfully, the connector I snapped wasn’t vital, just an ambient light sensor
Tom,
Very interesting. I’m glad you were successful in your video and got the “instant cash.”
I think it would be interesting to find out what the response rate has been to this offer. That is, of the people who they offer this “instant cash” to, how many actually take the offer and give them a useful video.
In particular, it could be interesting and possibly useful to contrast the participation rate when tangible compensation is offered with voluntary, non-compensated participation (like the 90-9-1 “rule”).
If that’s something you could ask the people you’ve been e-mailing with at laptopscreens.com, I’ll bet the folks following this thread would be interested in the response.
That is an interesting question. I asked the support person just now, so we’ll see if they have that information available and are able to share it.
Richard, I asked their support your question. They said the responses follow a 99-1 rule. 99% of the people ignore the email; 1% respond. They’ve tried various amounts for the rewards, about 15 dollars more or less — same response. Many users ask them how to upload to Youtube.
I like it!