Crowdsourcing

http://www.palantir.com/engineering-culture/
I like the three guiding ideas: "The Best Idea Wins," "Nothing is Permanent," and "Keep Focused on the Mission." These are actually good rules to live by in general. "All voices are equal here—we hire people to have an opinion and be creative. We’re intolerant of politicking, ego, and power brokers. If your idea makes the most sense, that’s what we’re doing, regardless of the seniority or role of the person presenting the idea." This rule reminds me of STAC, because we don't tolerate people being assholes to each other.

http://www.palantir.com/life-at-palantir/
This seems like a great place to work. It reminds me a lot of STAC. You do your work, but you don't need to sit at a desk and frown at a screen the whole time. It seems like the employees at Palantir have very good relationships with each other, which is very good for getting work done because everybody is comfortable and happy. It seems almost too good to be true.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/11-tips-for-crowdfunding-how-to-raise-money-from-strangers/
I feel like these are the exact steps that Amanda Palmer took. She was passionate, compelling, interesting, smart... and here it is, all on one website. These tips are extremely helpful, because now I'm not as lost when it comes to knowing what we're going to be doing for this crowdsourcing project.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Google-Visual-Assets-Guidelines-Part-1/9028077
I like how the Google template is so colorful, yet they are the same colors all over the website. The icons are really geometric, which makes a huge but subtle difference in how people perceive Google.