Crowdsourcing at the bookies

Martin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:25:31 +0000

Great article by Libby Purves in yesterday’s Times about the ability of Paddy Power punters to predict events in the corporate and political world, such as the collapse of the XL travel company. The Irish-based bookie apparently took so many bets on the XL collapse that it closed its book, even though “jets were still taking off and passengers queueing hopefully at airports.” It is now taking bets on a range of possible events, from Ireland dropping the euro to the identity of the next Met Commissioner.

If you want to know what is going on in the world and the fate that might befall your company, Paddy Power would appear to be the place to go. The buzz term for this form of corporate clairvoyance is ‘prediction markets’, in which companies harness the ‘wisdom of crowds’ (employees, customers) to help forecast consumer demand and market behaviour. For a balanced view of the merits of prediction markets, check out John McQuaid’s article in Wired.

Crowdsourcing

Martin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:21:38 +0000

We devote a few pages in the book to ‘crowdsourcing’, which we consider the most advanced form of collaboration between a business and its customers. With perfect timing, this month also sees the launch of Crowdsourcing: a book devoted to the topic, written appropriately by the journalist who came up with the phrase in the first place, Jeff Howe. Check out Jeff’s blog for more details. He has also put together a good video (far slicker than ours) …

Whilst the phrase crowdsourcing may be relatively new -and Howe is able to argue persuasively that it has transformed many industries – credit should also be given to Alvin Toffler, whose book, The Third Wave, written in 1980, was already anticipating the emergence of ‘prosumers’, who would eventually become co-creators, involved in both product design and production.

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Crowdsourcing at the bookies

Crowdsourcing