Month / October 2009

by Roger Dennis

Future Agenda now live

In the second post subtitled “what has been keeping me busy,” Future Agenda is now live. This is a unique cross-discipline programme which is uniting the best minds from around the globe to address the greatest challenges of the next decade. In doing so, it is mapping out the major issues, identifying and debating potential solutions and suggesting the best ways forward.  We’ve used a website as a centre point for the programme,which in effect is creating a structured open-source approach to foresight.

I encourage you to visit the site and to add your comments.

by Roger Dennis

iPhone App Store As An Innovation Engine

This post could also be called “what’s been keeping me busy lately.”  The answer to that is a whole myriad of fascinating projects for clients, and one of these today hit the headlines.

I’m working with the senior team at Jade Software in New Zealand, and assisting in both innovation and foresight (the latter for clients of Jade).

I proposed the iPhone App Store idea as a way of stimulating software developers to think differently about what they designed and how they designed it. In a nutshell here’s the concept:

  • any employee at Jade is encouraged to work with others to come up with an idea for an iPhone app. We think that the team that will win the competition will be cross-functional i.e. not just developers, but also people from sales, marketing, admin, etc.
  • Jade has provided both non-technical overviews of the Apple ecosystem, and technical sessions on programming for the iPhone
  • the company has also setup a series of Apple workstations and allowed people to spend company time on these developing their apps
  • the winner of the competition is the one with the most downloads by Christmas.  they not only receive the latest iPhone (and connection for two years), they also keep every cent they earn from people buying their app
  • teams need to think about how they market their app and use their social networks, media etc to spread the word.  In other words, they are bringing their own little business to life, but being bankrolled by the company they work for.

I was impressed at the way in which the  CEO and CIO at Jade both picked up the idea and ran with it, and the reaction from the wider team at Jade has been equally impressive (to the extent there’s had to been extra technical sessions added). Watch this space for updates…

by Roger Dennis

Prediction Markets and Foresight

I’m extremely interested in new methods of undertaking foresight projects, and communicating the output of such work.  I’m also intrigued by the power of prediction markets, so when an idea mixes these ideas together it captures my attention.

It’s no surprise that it came from the IBM Global Innovation Outlook team in partnership with Spigit. The markets are now closed but the results – and the method – is fascinating. Here’s the summary from the site:

Prediction markets are an increasingly popular way to gather collective intelligence for better decision-making and more accurate forecasting. Prediction markets have been widely covered in the media and have been created for topics ranging from Academy Award winners to U.S. Presidential Elections. Enterprises are now beginning to use them, recognizing the potential benefits of prediction markets for scenarios such as prioritizing ideas, forecasting sales, predicting demand, or assessing product deployment dates. When properly executed, prediction markets have proven to be more accurate than many traditional methods of polling, surveying, and equal to or better than expert forecasts which is why IBM is investigating Predictive Idea Markets – a potentially new way to use prediction markets techniques and approaches for gathering consensus on business ideas.

Using a stock-trading format, participants express the strength of their opinions by ‘investing’ tokens in top ideas they believe will succeed, receiving 100 tokens to invest in each market. “Investing” involves selecting a question and “buying” an idea or answer using tokens. “Buying an idea” can express belief that the idea has high potential to succeed. Participants need not invest in all markets but may focus on the ones they have an affinity towards or feel they have some level of knowledge or insight about.

Have a look at the Smarter Cities Predictive Ideas Market to get the full details.