Ask A Client for Help?

I was cleaning out some old email files and I ran across this posting from a Business2.0 blog - The Economics of Peer Production - written in September of 2005.

From the article:

So far in the history of capitalism, we've had two major ways to organize economic activity: through companies and through markets. They work in tandem, of course, but they represent two different approaches. Companies coordinate resources (such as people, money, and equipment) through the management hierarchy. A market does the same thing by setting a price on the ultimate economic output that those resources will produce. Now we're seeing the beginnings of a third way to coordinate economic activity that, in some cases, may be more efficient than either the company or the market. It's called peer production.

The Web is creating new ways to coordinate economic activity by allowing individuals to create products for themselves and others to enjoy. Yale Law School professor Yochai Benkler coined the term peer production to describe "the emergence of a vibrant, innovative and productive collaboration, whose participants are not organized in firms and do not choose their projects in response to price signals." Peer production is part and parcel of what I call the culture of participation -- that is, the explosion of user-generated goods (mostly digital), including open-source software, the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, blogs, podcasts, and photo-sharing sites like Flickr.

I remember thinking at the time that I know a lot of people who spend hours helping other people with problems at work and enjoy the fact that they are working on something different than what they normally do. A change of pace. I thought these would be the people who would find value in a "participatory experience."

Now I'm wondering if firms like mine who deal with quite a few very smart clients could leverage that resource in addition to the employees of the firm. What if when I'm putting together recommendations for a prospective client existing clients could provide input on the work product. The clients of my firm could register as a "peer" and have access to specific documents that are in the development process. They could comment on our recommendations, offer suggestions, edit, provide different points of view (or even want to buy that recommendation themselves!)

Basically be a part of the company - an unpaid, voluntary employee. (I don't know about unpaid - they may want a break on their price for the work they did - and I'd be happy to do it.)

How cool would that be for me and for the client (helping my firm grow - and increasing the value of our firm to them.)

Would clients want to do that?