21st Century Organization

netWORK Beings

“Younger people have grown up with computers and networks in a way that older people haven't,” says Nicholas Brealey whose Future Files: The 5 Trends That Will Shape the Next 50 Years by Richard Watson comes out in November. “The younger generation built Web 2.0,” he says.

Future Files is cited amongst a review in Publishers Weekly of  numerous new management books where a few remarkable themes stand out: 

- the title of the review The Individual Man: Business Management for a new generation can only spark - are you kidding me?? but there are still some gems,

- instantaneous anticipation of respect (some 6 million new businesses were started last  year,

- young leaders are customizing their companies to fit their lifestyles and values (certainly the case with Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos)

- leader as a whole person rather than a set of skills or techniques

- young people see themselves as more than a cog in a machine

- sense of individuality, high needs and expectations

- action for managers to “go green"

Other than the Future Files there did not seem to be many books carving out new management or organizational models for a networked world as I would have expected given the enormous social media shifts impacting business.  Put it under the rubric of Enterprise 2.0 which also happens to be a conference where colleague Jenny Ambrozek and I will be leading a discussion on Open netWORKING Organizations - Co-generating Business Value.

But in a stunning triumph of an article by Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stoopid? in the July/ August issue of The Atlantic Monthly I think I see the answers. The relentless march of technology to improve organizational effectiveness and efficency is not new. Any student of business knows of Frederick Taylor and his principles of Scientific Management As Carr describes:

Taylor's system is still very much with us: It remains the ethic of industrial manufacturing. And now, thanks to the growing power that computer engineers and software coders wield over our intellectual lives, Taylor's ethic is beginning to govern the realm of the mind as well. The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its  legions of programmers are intent on finding the "one best method" -the perfect algorithm- to carry out every mental movement of what we have come to describe as "knowledge work."

We are still being Taylorized.

It was the opening of Carr's article characterizing his own awareness though of how his  thinking, patience for reading and writing has changed AW (after web) compared to BW (before web) which struck a chord.  Here is the netWORK being, the generation who's reading, surfing, interacting, expectations and instantaneous anticipation of respect is shaped by the technology.

He points to research which confirms some of these observations that Internet usage affects cognition. Quotes Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain that we become "mere decoders of information."

There is much to this article and it may rank right up there with Bill Joy's famous Why the Future Doesn't Need Us but I think there is a wake up call for those of us consulting to organizations on the intersection of technology and human performance.  We need to remember that workplaces need to be a balance of social and technological systems. Taylor has actually been given a bad wrap for years in that he was actually trying to make work more satisfying for the worker by optimizing efficiency. 

In our Enterprise 2.0 session we refer to the socio-tech balance as relevant today as Tavistock 50 years ago "If a technical system is created at the expense of a social system, the results obtained will be sub-optimal."  Looking forward to the next iteration of netWORK beings.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

 

 

Attending Enterprise 2.0 Open Boston: Hope to see you there

The array of intriguing sessions at Enterprise 2.0 Boston June 9-12 has Victoria Axelrod and I packing our bags. We plan to start with "An Evening in the Cloud" and participate in the Enterprise 2.0 Open Session hosted by Ross Mayfield and Socialtext, Tuesday at 12.30pm. (Thanks Steve Ardire for the pointer.) Our proposed session topic is Open net∞WORKing Organizations - Co-generating Business Value and we look forward to the opportunity to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Looking for Enterprise Platforms Promoting "Social Networking"

Inspired by writing an Inside Knowledge article about our Facebook Groups Investigation with co-conveners Bill Anderson and Victoria Axelrod, at Enteprise 2.0 Boston I will be investigating companies adding social networking tools to their platforms.  Already I see Trampoline and IBM/Lotus Atlas will be present with serious ambitions to people network organizations.  Simon Oxley noted SocialText has a new release to reveal participant connections. After watching ConnectBeam's demo at FASTForward 2007 I'm interested to see how their product has evolved. 

Suggestions about other vendors adding user networking to check out are appreciated. It'll be interesting to watch how the flurry of interest in "social networking" tools for the enterprise unfolds especially in an enviroment where IT publications are focused on "The Problems with Social Networks".

Enterprise 2.0 Boston V Hanover

Intriguing to me about Enterprise 2.0 Boston is the international audience it's attracting if my small sample is indicative. I'm hoping amidst the crowd to reconnect with Mark Masterson and Robert Hommburg whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Enterprise 2.0 Hanover. I have to wonder how the Boston conference will compare given the high standard convener Björn Negelmann and host Simon Wardley set at CEBIT.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

A week of "Net Work". DHL partners with UPS & Matt Moore visits Manhattan

"Net Work" is the title of Patti Anklam's "Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World". I've been actually reading Patti's book this week, not just using as a reference, to review for Inside Knowledge Magazine. (I admit to being a biased reviewer having been a privileged member of Patti's Gennova Emergent Learning Network from which the book sprung.)

A value of Patti's book is the number of real world networks examined.  Examples from “Gennova” that seeded the book, to the Boston healthcare community and the Young President’s Organization, Fast Company Magazine’s “Company of Friends”,  Women’s World Banking, Procter and Gamble’s “Connect and Develop” and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Knowledge Lab are all used to demonstrate network dynamics and the variety of purposes networks can serve.

With how organizations operate as networks on my mind I couldn't help but notice the page 13 Financial Times Thursday (May 29) headlined "DHL pays up to deliver with rival". DHL and UPS are intersecting their networks. DHL is paying UPS "$1bn annually to fly customers packages between North American cities" and "shut down 30 per cent of DHL's US infrastructure... as part of of a restructuring plan that will cost $2bn.." The FT reports for UPS the arrangement "will help ensure its fleet of aircraft remain full even if more customers opt for cheaper shipping options than overnight delivery."

Ending the week writing about "Net Work" I realize it started that way too, in a rich conversation with Sydney visitor Matt Moore. Thanks Matt for fitting me into your travels and the chance to explore our shared interests, especially around organizational network analysis and measuring value created through connectedness.  Good wishes for the rest of your journey.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Thinking about Open Network Business Models: Your Insights Invited

Victoria Axelrod (my 21stCenturyOrganization blogging colleague) and I are on deadline for Effective Executive, an India based business magazine published by ICFAI University Press. Working title of our piece is:

Open Net-Working Organizations - Co-generating Knowledge and Innovation

Our article explores themes we've blogged about here over the past 2 years, research for two recent Inside Knowledge Magazine articles ("Broadcasting Innovation: Organising to Connect Intelligence" and "Prediction Markets: Co-creating the Organisation", my Enterprise 2.0 Summit Hanover presentation, and our forthcoming Social Capital: Glue for Sustainability Workshop, May 5 in Las Vegas, following the Community 2.0 Conference. (As Victoria previously wrote please use code SPKRM2005 for a friends 20% discount if you can join us.)

We like to practice what we advocate so as our article is about open, networked, working we're sharing our article outline here and inviting fresh perspectives and contributions of interesting sources.  Our article focus reflects we are contributing to a special Effecutive Executive Knowledge Management edition.

Overview

"In a March 2007 "Long Live KM" online discussion through the AOK Group, Robert Buckman (described by Infoworld as "KM's father figure") wrote:

"Jerry, thank you for the kind words, but I never did try and manage knowledge. What I really tried to manage and nurture was a culture that would encourage and expand the flow of knowledge. It was because economic value could only be obtained in our environment when knowledge moved across the organization in response to a need."
~ Bob Buckman, March 6, 2007 AOK Yahoo Group Post

Two decades since Buckman's pioneering work to encourage and expand knowledge flow and innovation, taking a network view of organizations and using the tools of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) facilitates creating open, collaborative organizational cultures. More importantly, an intentional open net-working approach aids understanding how "social capital value" is created in organizations through dynamic interactions and relationships between all of an organization's participants and stakeholders. Examples from our research and experience of organizations using new open network models to promote knowledge sharing, innovation and value creation are included.

While we will revisit open working models investigated in our Inside Knowledge articles:

• Qualcomm's Venture Fest using prediction markets
• The Bordeaux Energy Colloquium, a Think Tank Network,
• Executive to Executive Marketing Networks as implemented at Avaya
• Procter and Gamble's "Connect and Develop" and innovation marketplaces like Innocentive

we're also exploring approaches including:

• Boston Consulting Group's use of mapping tools to understand networks around patents and identify high potential talent. (Did they really just use Touchgraph as Manuel Lima suggests commenting on the Business Week article?)
• IBM's use of open network initiatives including sharing research with partners and clients. (Thanks to John Maloney for this paper find.)
• The innnovative and business critical collaborative knowledge sharing initiatives presented at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit, Hanover.

In writing about open network approaches we're alert to investigating when such models appear not to work effectively. Hence we're striving to understand what caused Boeing's decentralized 787 supply chain to become a critical factor in the company's high profile and costly aircraft delivery delays.

Yesterday discovering Robin Teigland's presentation on Slideshare, (displayed as a "Related Slideshow" to my Hanover presentation), I was reminded of the potential value that can be created through openness in knowledge sharing. This is especially so when you intentionally start by "looking around" as John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid encouraged in "The Social Life of Information", 2000.

Hence this blog post sharing our article themes and ideas. Any and all reactions to our focus and examples, insights into Boeing's supply chain issues, and or fresh insights and interesting open net-working business models are welcomed and appreciated.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

CIOs as Change Predictors

"CIOs who predicted the return of key innovation are the ones who can link up assets in their ecosystem, create efficiencies and are able to provide more value to customers."

In an interview with futurist James Canton, "prediction" was the favored stance for CIOs yet he claims only 35 to 45 percent of organizations have transformed their current business processes.  Trying to adapt the present while morphing into the future requires a forward thinking culture.

Prediction has always been the elusive brass ring.  No longer.  As change and complexity increase those who have mastery over predictive or emergent collaborative models will be in the forefront. 

It has become apparent that predictive tools and approaches provide multiple perspectives on data patterns that single approaches often miss. However articles on IT are still focusing on the 'hidden potential of IT" and CIOs.

Enterprise 2.0 has thrown us into a technology driven change warp. Any organization not understanding the dynamics of systemic or "echosystemic" thinking is living in the past. All of the organizational roles are equally as important to making a 21st century business successful but some have the benefit of marketplace drivers like technology to boost their roles to the forefront.

Still not convinced - one of the must read magazines for the IT inclined, The Industry Standard announced its rebirth as a suite of "prediction markets" -

IS features news and analysis that covers emerging technologies and companies, venture funding, acquisitions, site launches, and other developments in the internet space. Additionally, The Standard aggregates community knowledge in a quantified fashion, thereby ranking both the knowledge of the individual community members themselves, as well as the value of the information the community provides as a whole. This system is built as a prediction market, intersected with a reputation-based social network.

They clearly get it - participation is the new mindset and a prediction market is the means to tap participation.  In our recently published  article  for Inside  Knowledge on prediction markets  we interviewed some of the best software providers and summarized what we have found to be the key factors for success. If you would like a copy of the article let us know as the full piece is subscription only from Inside Knowledge.

Technology not withstanding, organizations need to value predictive information, aggregated from their whole network, to validate strategies and goals.

CIO, C suite executive or as we have found anyone in the organization can drive innovation if they understand the value of prediction to the bottom line.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Sustainable Globalization - A 2008 Resolution

Sustainable Globalization is not an oxymoron.  In the last few days of finishing a book chapter on globalization it occurred to me that I have spent close to two years thinking, writing and consulting about the antiseptic "silicon" world while the "carbon" world has been grinding along half way around the planet, namely China. 

The New York Times ran a photo journal series on China - Choking on Growth which causes flashbacks to the US and other developed nations "industrial revolution".  China is not alone as other developing nations, India and Mexico, are keeping pace. We in the US complain about off-shoring, however what many do not realize is that by sending our manufacturing  elsewhere we have also off-shored our environmental issues.   But the chickens are coming home to roost.  We only inhabit one planet. 

"Corporate social integration" as Michael Porter reinvents the term corporate social responsibility has the unique capability to resolve the "tension between business and society."  Imagine leap frogging the 20th century industrial wastes in China by understanding that "business and society are interdependent."

Oddly enough our silicon advances have the capacity to bridge the gap by enabling rapid information sharing and collaboration.  China or any developing country does not need to repeat the unsustainable history of advanced countries.  There are limits to egregious consumption. 

Kimberly Simaha, one of our colleagues in sustainable energy is looking for cases to demonstrate the possibilities.  We link you to her video as an energy boost of its own!

Let me also introduce you to SeaChange founded by husband and wife team - Roger Payne and Lisa Harrow who use natures beauty and immutable laws to bring us to our senses about the state of our biosphere.

man is not the overseer of life but an integral part of life’s complex web, and that our survival requires that we attend not just to our own wellbeing, but also to the wellbeing of the entire web of life.

As Payne points out every religion begins with the notion that man has dominion over the earth - possibly to destroy or save it - but not if we acknowledge that we are only part of an ecosystem.

Hard facts and data appeal to some i.e. carbon foot prints and percent of land, water and fish loss, or global warming. Others are moved by finance  - the worth of all of our natural assets, and some by poetry and song.  Payne and Harrow bring both science and poetry together in an outstanding performance.

In the following weeks we and our writing colleagues will be speaking on various topics from our Sustainability Fieldbook -When it All Comes Together to be published by Geenleaf and AMACOM in the fall of this year.  You can join us on the journey in the Sustainable Enterprise Facebook Group where your participation is valued and we will keep you posted as events unfold. 

Look forward to hearing about your models of "sustainable globalization" from your companies in 2008.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Verizon's OPEN for Business

Verizon’s leap into opening the use of their cell phone software to other companies is the result of a slow recognition of what Bill Gates’ Microsoft learned several decades ago. Gates was leapfrogging before the term came into use! Verizon saw the benefits of being open with their strategy.

They took the ritual of the industry’s slow evolution of thinking beyond the boundaries of organizational resources, product and core competence hugging plus the willingness to tolerate what appeared to be greater risk by experimenting with outsourcing and open sourcing before some of the behemoths of the industry.

There are of course always multiple factors that contribute to the kind of strategic decision Verizon has made. Certainly one factor is that it is often cheaper to buy hardware than to manufacture it given today’s manufacturing processes and low cost global labor. This is not far from the long-time practice of leasing facilities and equipment rather than buying, which leaves greater cash available for marketing, sales, research, innovation, application and service – to name a few, and of course much greater flexibility to move quickly. 

In addition, advancing technology now allows the integration of many applications into one small piece of hardware such as the cell phone. As Gate’s has proven, the opportunity cost of limiting software design and application to the hardware a company uses limits opportunity to sell what all customers want…to combine the features we think are best for our own particular use. Verizon’s decision expands their market opportunity by creating software and services that can be used by millions more customers.

It would not surprise me that a major contributor to Verizon’s decision was information they gathered through Social Network Analysis. By this decision alone, Verizon has opened their SNA opportunities to collaborate, learn, innovate, and expand their market presence, as well as reduced the constraints of hugging on to the limitations of their own equipment. Further, Verizon may now leverage and enhance their software applications based on the advanced hardware features of their new clients. Certainly an incentive to their clients will be their ability to use Verizon’s great transmission networks.

In the end, we will see more of this type of strategic decision making as the years go by, and at a much greater pace. We are just beginning to share knowledge and integrate that shared knowledge. Probably in the industrial age when things were slower and changes held static for decades it was wise not to share. However, that is a counter productive way of thinking and acting at the pace we work today. The sooner a company realizes the benefits of SNA and the advantage of being open to collaborative endeavors the sooner they will find that the risk is in not being open for business.

~ Bill Becker, Principal
Axelrod Becker Consulting

The Networked CEO

"...the Internet is an immensely powerful tool for multiplying human accomplishment—a goal that is central to the work of every manager and the design of every management system". Gary Hamel

Gary Hamel, in his recent  Moving Management Online Part One for Harvard Business Review Online admits that with all the social tools we have for collaboration, the democratizing effects of the internet and the complex demands of a globally connected economy management is still operating with much the same 20th century models - for NOW.

We have been advocating more relevant approaches for sometime yet collaborative models, which are not new have had glacial adoption.  Part of the slow uptake of these approaches is stalled by current management experts who have a vested interest in maintaining what is familiar.

Example: CEO Evolution 3.0 a recent New York Times article describes the 21st century CEO as one who "makes people feel part of a team" and "delegates", among other management 101s. Really! Feeling part of a team and acting are two different animals. The title is great but nothing new here.

Moving Management Online, on the other hand gets to the point quickly about the essence of management, especially in context of today's highly complex, uncertain and networked business environment.   

Figure 1: The Essence of Management - Hamel

At present it seems most organizations are very good at the aggregating side of the equation and less good at amplifying - just look at any talent management program or succession plan.  Generally, they are all about humans as assets and resources, inter -changeable  commodities.  Amplifying human capabilities takes deep understanding of behavior.

Enter a second dilemma for our waning management models which Hamel portrays as the "market-versus-hierarchy trade-offs".

Big bureaucracies can accomplish what markets alone can not.  Networks form the bridge between the two.

Figure 2: Markets, Hierarchies, and Networks - Hamel

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The social web, for those organizations courageous enough to embrace its enormous potential through networks, melds the best of both worlds.  Look at Innocentive, the  open marketplace created by Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical giant, to create new products. Or Avaya's Customer Councils supporting executive to executive relationships to generate partnered solutions.

"Power to Convene" is the Avaya story. Mark Bonchek, CEO of the Truman Company coined this term which is the chapter title in The Firm as a Collaborative Community. For a 21st century CEO or senior leader the "power to convene" is job one. In particular, recognizing the power to convene those who have both a stake in the challenge and the knowledge to contribute, be they internal or external to an organization.

Sean Maloney, EVP and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Intel understands the power to convene. Starting in 2002, Maloney began an arduous task of bringing together the industry players to lay the basis for WiMAX, what will soon eclipse WiFi. The Road to WiMax story in   Business Week is a good primer for how to operate as a networked CEO.

Each of the key players he convened over five years, including Intel, has a unique business stake in seeing Wimax come to fruition.

"Intel was looking for something that would prompt consumers to buy new computers running its chips. Sprint needed an edge to set it apart from larger rivals Verizon (VZ ) and AT&T (T ). Mobile handset maker Nokia (NOK ) wanted to expand into providing communications services. And Samsung Group wanted to get into the networking equipment business. The interests of these four companies resulted in a pooling of patents and money to create the WiMAX phenomenon."[our italics for emphasis]

Leaders looking to find innovative management models need to look beyond the well lit cases, the old wine in new bottles, toward up and comers like Maloney.

Lowell Bryan, Mobilizing Minds author with Claudia Joyce (which my colleague Jenny Ambrozek reviewed) and Gary Hamel, The Future of Management were interviewed by McKinsey Quarterly to provide insight on innovative management. 

From their perspectives, tapping the collective intelligence of highly talented creative individuals is where value/competitive advantage will be created in the future.  Social technologies have already provided enormous "profit per employee" gains for the most successful companies.  However, innovative management is not yet in the DNA of most companies.  Strategy is still a top down process, and as Hamel points out " the top can hold the organizations capacity to change hostage to their own personal willingness to adapt and change."

From our own experience in working with organizations around innovation and growth, knowledge may be distributed but power distribution is not and it is reinforced through enormous disparities in compensation.  Neither Hamel or Bryan take on the issues of wealth redistribution which needs to occur if we are to adopt their metrics of performance - return on capital (ROC) or profit per employee (PPE).  Compensation and reward are two of the last sacred cows of the 20th century which need to be addressed if we are to achieve innovative management and adoption of peer to peer networks.

Hamel plans a Moving Management Online Part 2 where he may address more of the challenges toward moving to innovative models.  In the meantime some lessons learned:

• Start with a business driver - Avaya needed to provide custom solutions when traditional products and services would not meet customer demands. Intel needed to create a new market.
• Co-create - Include customers, users, stakeholders, people with knowledge and diverse views to generate solutions.
• Use the periphery - reach to the edges of your known network to find new opportunities.
• Distribute innovation - as organizations continue to flatten, lateral, bottom-up, top- down, internal and external networks need to be tapped - Innocentive.
• Reward and compensate innovation.
• Use the "power to convene" - executive to executive networks can shape an industry's future - Avaya and Intel.

21st century leaders need to keep adapting and adopting a network approach if they are to move their organizations forward - old management models will not carry them to the future.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Challenges in Emerging Brands & Organizations: Delta, Hyundai & Enlyten(TM)

Working to create something from nothing at start-ups during the Internet boom some days a valued colleague (with whom I shared more than one), and I would find ourselves saying:

"This is REALLY hard".

This past week multiple CNBC news stories have reminded me that business challenges come regardless of whether you are a start-up or established company and brand.

1. Health Sports Inc. Maker of Enlyten(TM) Sports Strips(TM)

Darren Rovell story today on new entrant Enlyten(TM) with its electroylyte replacement ingestible strips that compete with heavy weights like Gatorade. Story reports colleges with existing sport drink manufacturer deals are being "discouraged" from talking to the Enlytyen folks. Video is here.

2. Hyundai Efforts to Change Brand with ThinkAboutIt.com

Autos reporter Phil LeBeau described how having worked to improve quality challenges now Hyundai needs to change brand perception.  He reports on a new "Think About It" marketing campaign. Concludes by predicting Hyundai will have to launch a new luxury brand as Japanese auto makers have done with Acura, Lexus and Infiniti to succeed. Video.

3. Delta "Tray Chic"

October 3 story describing a Delta airlines "experiential marketing" campaign that involves offering up-scale food menus.

"The meals will be introduced next month, and by next spring, they will be available on all flights of approximately 750 miles in the contiguous United States. Items will sell for between two and ten dollars."

With my interest in architecting online interaction Delta's focus on "interaction with the product" caught my attention:

'You've really got to talk to people and interact with them face to face. It's not about just ads any more, or advertising or posters. They really want to interact with the product," said Vincenz."

Based on my August experience delivering a passenger to Delta's JFK economy check in Delta has more work to do than improving meals.  Lines were chaotic. Inadequate staff, self check in terminals and signage to make clear where you should go. It was a zoo. We have to repeat the process around Thanksgiving. I'm NOT looking forward to it.

The Enlyten (TM), Hyundai and Delta stories provide considerable food for thought. My bottom-line today though is that as the challenges keep coming in this competitive environment (regardless of an organization's growth stage), recognizing those who can successfully innovate in organizations, and rewarding when positive results appear, are really important.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Prediction Markets: Connecting Intelligence in Organizations

The prospects for wider adoption of prediction markets in organizations have intrigued me since attending the New York Prediction Markets Cluster event early 2006. Searching for prediction market applications to reference in our recent article a 2005 Bo Cowgill piece on Google's use was the most readily accessible. 

The Consensus Point hosted Prediction Market Conference September 24 in New York revealed I was clearly not looking in the right places.  Hats off to David Perry and Ken Kittlitz for a rich gathering and update on the prediction markets landscape. You answered my questions and more about what companies are using, for what business objectives, and why prediction markets are not more visible.  Following are some highlights.

1.  Hearing Robin Hanson Speak

It's interesting knowing about a tool and then discovering oneself in a room talking with the person credited with being the "the first to set up and run a corporate prediction exchange —at Xanadu, Inc., in April 1989". Robin Hanson is an "associate professor of economics at George Mason University, and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University." His presentation is laced with graphs and focuses on how value is created. Devoting time to exploring his presentations is recommended.

2. Getting Insight into How Leading Companies are Applying Prediction Markets

Hearing the experiences of companies the caliber of GE Research, Misys Banking Systems, NBC Universal, Best Buy and Qualcomm using prediction markets to improve decision-making and project management is attention getting. That answered my question about what companies are adopting.  Learning Consensus Point serves companies that do not reveal prediction market applications for data sensitivity and competitive intelligence reasons helps understand why this tool doesn't have a higher profile.

3.  Hearing from "The Wisdom of Crowds" Author James Surowiecki About Challenges 

Essentially implementing prediction markets challenges traditional hierarchical organizational structures, notions of power, and mindsets, "the deep seated impulse to find the one person with the right answer."  I heard Surowiecki say:

"Prediction markets are not just about improving decision-making. Also about transforming organizations as a whole."

4. Listening to Jed Christiansen and being Reminded of the Growing Demands for Analytical Skills in Organization

Jed presented his London School of Economics thesis study results investigating prediction markets to group forecast rowing race winners. (His Mercury's Blog includes video presentations explaining prediction markets and how they can help companies.)

Listening to Jed talk about calibration, accuracy measures, scoring rules, trader distributions, data scatter, linear best fit, and probabilities you cannot escape recognizing the increasingly quantitative talent demands of 21st century business.

5.  Noting the People Connecting Impact of Prediction Market Initiatives

A thread among the presenters was how prediction markets expand people connections in organizations.  Through market participation employees from disparate parts of organizations discover unknown people with similar interests and unexpected talents.  Market activity becomes a thread in employee conversations. Previously unrecognized expertise emerges through successful trading and listing on leader boards.

Smart companies are exploring use and adopting prediction markets to connect intelligences and improve decision-making and forecasting. But doing so demands leadership that is not threatened by discovering what the collective wisdom can tell them, especially when the information shared is not what they want to hear.

Considering Robin Hanson's first corporate prediction exchange dates to 1989, and Ken Kittlitz has been developing exchanges for fourteen years, gives some insight into the realities of putting prediction markets to work in organizations.  Has their time come?

~ Jenny Ambrozek