The We Are Smarter Than Me project
Just when I started to read The Wisdom of Crowds this comes along…
Via Ross Mayfield I just learned about an exiting new project launched today called We Are Smarter Than Me.
Essentially it is collaborative writing exercise (using a wiki of course!) with as main purpose to write a “network book” on the Use of Communities by businesses. To quote from the website:
We Are Smarter Than Me has been formed to prove that the community can write a compelling book better than individual experts…
addressing a crucial shift in how businesses operate as they learn to leverage the power of “community.”
The central premise of We Are Smarter Than Me is that large groups of people (“We”) can, and should, take responsibility for traditional business functions that are currently performed by companies, industries and experts (“Me”).
The whole writing process is supported by a community itself using a discussion forum and the royalties of the final book being sold will go to charities.
Of course, I could not resist to enlist as a participant, to closely follow this experiment and to see whether I can contribute some of my own experience.
As a bonus: a prediction tool
There is even a prediction tool where you are able to trade on 4 questions:
- Will there be at least 10,000 registered community members by March 31, 2007?
- Will more than 20% of the registered members* participate as book authors? (*based on the number of registered members on the date the book is published)
- Will the book break into Amazon’s Top 1000 by December 31, 2007?
- Will the volume of book sales exceed 50,000 copies by December 31, 2007?
The goal of this tool is to see if the community will accurately determine the veracity of these 4 predictions. All very nice, especially since I had become very interested in experimenting with such a tool in a company environment.
There may however be an issue with the market already, as the current “prices” suggest an almost 100% “yes” outcome for the questions. Earning money now would need some serious short position (which is possible!). Maybe the questions would need to be more ambitious?
Technorati tag(s): We are smarter than me, Wiki, Social software, Enterprise 2.0
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posted Oct 15, 09:39 PM on Oct 15, 2006 |
category: Social software
/ Wiki