A few years ago, I met up with Matt Greeley, the CEO of Brightidea. He talked about concepts like crowd-sourcing and how his company's platform would lead the way.

But it hasn't been easy. After all, it can be tough to convince companies to look outside their walls for ideas and innovations. Yet, as the economy gets more competitive, there may be no alternative.

So, as a validation of Greeley's vision, his platform is actually at the core of a major initiative from GE (GE): the Ecomagination Challenge. Basically, this entails a variety of contests to find innovative ideas to improve the electrical grid, such as introducing new clean-tech products. There are $200 million in prizes and GE has teamed up with top-notch investors like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer, Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital and Rockport Capital. What's more, the judges include famed author Chris Anderson as well as senior executives from GE.

Nike's (NYSE: NKE) "swoosh" logo is incredibly powerful and captures the essense of the company. Interestingly enough, back in 1971 Carolyn Davidson designed the logo for a mere $35 (for more stories about logos, check out the LogoBlog).

So of course, your company's logo is critical -- in terms of branding, getting customers, and presenting the right image. And, the good news is that there are many affordable options to get a top-notch one.

Whether it is called crowdsourcing or wikis or social networking, there is a wealth of collaborative experience and expertise available online to help improve decision making, increase profitability, drive product innovation and expand into new markets.

Authors Barry Libert and Jon Spector have collated the contributions of hundreds of collaborators into an easy-to-read, information-filled guide book, We Are Smarter Than Me, to help entrepreneurs as well as those in established businesses harness the collaborative possibilities on the Web. The guide book includes case studies from well-established firms in addition to highlighting newly emerging collaborative possibilities. The authors include many helpful "what to do" suggestions to allow mass collaborative efforts to work for all types of busines-related situations.

The authors provide numerous examples of how mass collaboration can help raise capital for start-ups, provide wide-ranging but low-cost expertise, solicit customer input on product design features prior to production, and form communities of customer support for products already purchased. Lots of graphics and bulleted sections make the guide quite user-friendly.

We Are Smarter is already at work on its second collaborative volume, this one dealing with mass collaborative efforts to increase and enhance marketing and sales efforts. Contributions are currently being solicited, so you can still be part of the WE.