How it works
By the way, we are always adding and improving things: What's New?
What is Share Your Brain?
We like to think of Share Your Brain as similar to walking into a giant room of people and asking them to help come up with ideas for a design or request for which your business has a need.
For example, you could ask "What should my logo look like?" or "What kind of billboard campaign should we run?" The requests could be large, small, quick or long-running - it could be anything!
The resulting brainstorming and interaction between all those people - bouncing ideas off each other, adding and subtracting contributions from user to user, would create many new ideas, designs and innovative directions for you and your business.
And, it's not just a lump of random ideas either - since the community votes continually during the project, the best and most relevant ideas rise to the top.
And for our creative users, who generate the ideas, we have more than a few incentives. First, people who design, or think creatively do it because they enjoy it. Helping other people out with ideas and information, for many people, is satisfying in its own right - look at the success of Wikipedia and other collaborative ventures on the Internet.
But Share Your Brain offers more than altruism - Secondly, we have a reward system that allows contributing users to earn prizes and cash deposits through PayPal for their effort. Creative users can see their top-voted ideas earn them something other community kudos - although we try to support that as well.
Third, we also have an upcoming portfolio system where users can show off their ideas as well as future partnerships with online career sites so that users can use their time and effort to help self-promote and show-off their brains and skills.
Finally, it's fun! The process of collaboration with like-minded users and friends is itself fun.
So, we connect people that have similar skills and interests - and allow them to work together collaboratively towards a common goal: designing cool stuff, solving problems and working with brands big and small.
We also allow businesses (and individuals!) to tap the incredible amount of talent and teamwork in those people - people that they may not have the time, money or ability to coordinate and utilize.
It's distributed creativity!
How does Share Your Brain work?
If you need solutions or designs - create a request or "project" on which the entire user community can then help by brainstorming ideas, creating designs and helping to generate solutions that meet your guidelines. If you have the ideas - join a project and jump in by creating new ideas that help solve the problem or the design request.
These projects are like mini-contests - everyone gets to vote on the best solutions or designs for each project. When the project closes (usually a few weeks or a month,) everyone who participated in the winning idea gets rewarded with prizes and for Premium Members, cash.
When you're smart, people need you. We have a great way to use your mind creatively (and earn cool stuff) in your spare time - find a project!
What type of projects are possible?
The beauty of Share Your Brain is that anyone can create projects for just about anything! You could create a project asking for online banner designs, a new logo or letterhead, a new t-shirt design, a clever way to write a function in C++ or PHP, website redesign ideas, new business models, video game design, unique plotlines for stories, scary monsters or crazy maps for video games, PR campaign brainstorming, new radio spots, different advertising direction, merchandising options, finding new ways to pick stocks, collecting ideas on keeping customers, writing a new TV commercial, movie screenplays, etc. etc.
As you can see, we can keep going - and you can probably come up with thousands of ways we can help you or your business be more creative. :-)
How do winners get rewarded?
We use a point system similar to popular credit cards or airline mileage. You earn Ideapoint and then can redeem those points for prizes and cash.
Every project has a reward or prize value in Ideapoints. This is the amount of Ideapoints that the project owner is awarding for the top idea. So for example, if a project is listing the award at 10,000 Ideapoints - then all the users who participated in the winning idea would split the 10,000 Ideapoints.
When a user starts a project or a request for ideas, they will specify what the reward for the winning idea will be when the project closes. The Ideapoints can come from the user's own earned point balance or can be purchased outright with a credit card.
Users earn Ideapoints whenever they contribute to an existing idea, add their own idea, refer other users to signup, etc. However, most of the earned Ideapoints for a user will come from having the winning idea at the close of the project.
When a project closes, the idea with the most votes from the community wins. Each user that participated in that idea - from the original idea owner to the collaborators - are rewarded Ideapoints based on the type and nature of their contributions to the idea. We use a proprietary method of calculating and weighting the user contributions for an idea, but the end result is that the reward is split among all the collaborators for the winning idea. The original owner of an idea will naturally get a larger share, but all users who contribute to the winning idea will get some share of the reward.
The users can then redeem their Ideapoints for a variety of prizes - Premium Members can redeem their Ideapoints for PayPal cash deposits.
Ideapoints can be redeemed at any time for various prizes or can be used as the reward amount for your own projects. Premium Members may choose to redeem their Ideapoints for cash deposits via PayPal in addition to the prizes.
Is there a limit on a project's reward?
As a business or an individual starting a project or request, you can specify whatever amount of Ideapoints for the reward that you wish. We have a minimum of 150 Ideapoints for the reward and no maximum at this time. Therefore, if you wish to put up 100,000 Ideapoints (currently equivalent to around $1,000.00) as your project's reward, you certainly can. Keep in mind that you have to purchase those points if you haven't already earned them!
We are still adjusting the appropriate redeem amounts. Currently, Premium Members can redeem Ideapoints for cash every 24 hours at a maximum of $100.00 per deposit. Depending on usage, we will match the redemption amounts to the common project reward amounts so that users don't have to redeem 5 times over a period of a week to claim a 50,000 point reward. Until then, don't complain - $100 per day isn't too shabby.
What's this about prizes and cash?
Everything you do around here earns Ideapoints. When you create an idea for an active project - or simply help out on someone else's idea - you are earning Ideapoints! When you help out other projects by voting... you earn Ideapoints. Winning a project with the top-voted idea... earns more Ideapoints. If you are a Premium Member and you refer friends to signup... even more Ideapoints.
Redeem your Ideapoints for cool prizes or turn around and create your own projects. Remember - Premium Members can redeem their Ideapoints for bigger prizes and even cash deposits via PayPal!
What does becoming a Premium Member do for me?
Remember when we said everything around here earns you Ideapoints? Well, as a Premium Member, you get a bonus on all earned Ideapoints! You also get access to more prizes and the ability to redeem your Ideapoints directly for cash back.
Besides those obviously beneficial perks, another reason to become a Premium Member is that some projects are ONLY available to Premium Members. Sometimes, larger brands may want to limit the amount of people that participate in their projects and we give Premium Members VIP access into these special promotions.
But wait, there's more! Premium Members can earn additional Ideapoints (and more prizes and cash!) by referring friends to signup to Share Your Brain - every new user that you bring in who becomes a Premium Member will give you additional Ideapoints. You can rack up the points fast by telling everyone you know about us. ;-)
What a bargain! Sign me up now!