Fiat Mio: Bringing crowdsourcing to the automotive industry

Originally published in Razorfish Headlight Blog

Ever since the open source software movement started in 1998, businesses across all industries have learned the benefits of cooperative activity and collaboration. And with the recent growth of Web 2.0 technologies, cheaper creative tools and a cost-saving mentality forced by the recession, it is no surprise that there has also been a trend of leveraging the mass community -– crowdsourcing, as some call it -– to achieve business goals in innovative ways.

Fiat Brazil is now bringing the same principles to the automotive industry and is designing a concept car using crowdsourced ideas collected through a dedicated project website as well as via social-networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter and Orkut. This initiative is dubbed the “Mio” project and the Fiat Concept Car III will be presented at the 2010 International São Paulo Auto Show in Brazil, though it is still to be determined if it will be commercially launched. (The predecessor to the Fiat Concept Car III, the Concept Car II (see image), was shown at the International São Paulo Auto Show in 2008.)

Fiat has chosen Brazil because it is a digitally sophisticated market and, according to Advertising Age, Fiat is Brazil’s No. 1 carmaker, with a 24.8 percent market share, and the country’s fifth-largest advertiser, spending about $80 million a year.

At the time of this writing, the Mio project site has more than 6,800 ideas and 9,600 participants, in addition to its 1,100-plus Twitter followers. Ideas generated through this project will be protected by a Creative Commons license and have ranged from the simple –- distribute owner manuals in a flash drive –- to the somewhat ridiculous –- using garbage as fuel for propulsion and releasing oxygen as exhaust gases. Unsurprisingly, the project site states that ”ideas from users combined will be tested and made viable with the proposals of our engineers.”

The site’s current focus is on questions regarding ergonomics, safety, materials, design, infotainment and propulsion. In March 2010 topics will be shifted, in preparation for the São Paulo Auto Show, to branding and marketing ideas…(read more)