Using PM inside corporations

[matthewfog]

Does anyone have any good pointers to learnings from the corporate use
of PMs? I am about to set up a series of markets within my company
(big entertainment software company). Particularly value thoughts on
incentive systems, best way of introducing the idea and the tradeoff
between fun and serious types of bets.

Thanks

[Emile Servan-Schreiber]

Hi Matthew,

If you want professional advice, here are some starting points:

http://www.newsfutures.com
http://www.consensuspoint.com
http://www.inklingmarkets.com

In the meantime, here's some free advice:

** Incentives: participation will be driven by three factors, we call them the three R's: Rewards (of the material kind), Recognition (within a community of co-workers) , Relevance (of the topics being traded). If any one of those elements is lacking, you have to boost the other two to make up for it.

** Introducing the idea: The more top-level senior-exec buy-in you can secure, the better. That is tightly related to the "Recognition" factor. Traders must feel that the company cares about their performance and that they'll get recognized by the powers that be if they take the markets seriously, as part of their job.

**serious vs fun tradeoff: That's tightly related to the "Relevance" factor. Traders have to care, personally, about the topics being traded. The ideal is when there is no distinction between serious and fun. If you're going to ask "serious" questions, make sure they are the ones that people really care about, i.e., the important questions, the ones that cut to the bone of the company. And if you're going to add some "fun" questions, make sure that they are related to the job, otherwise your market will just look like a game you should not spend your time on during work hours.

Good luck, and keep us posted about your progress.

--Emile
NewsFutures

[Costakis, Alex]

Matthew - use of prediction markets for assessing entertainment related
applications is a natural fit. Be sure to customize the market as much
as possible to the orientation of your entertainment product(s) - both
in terms of the market's core functionality and the user-experience
(e.g. incentives, serious/fun).

From our perspective (Hollywood Stock Exchange), we have found markets
used for product development initiatives in music vs movies vs
television/cable vs video gaming, all behave very differently. Don't try
a one-size fits all solution for each specialized business area.

Alex
HSX

[David Pennock]

I’m happy to announce the following public event:

confab.yahoo on
Prediction markets: Tapping the wisdom of crowds

5:30-8:00pm Wed Dec 13, 2006
Yahoo! Headquarters, Building C, Classroom 5
701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 USA

http://upcoming.org/event/130004

Join us for a public "how to" session on prediction markets moderated by
James Surowiecki, New Yorker columnist and best-selling author of "The
Wisdom of Crowds". Speakers from Google, HP, Microsoft, and Yahoo! will
describe how they are using prediction markets to aid corporate
forecasting and decision making. Other speakers include the developer of
Zocalo, an open source prediction market platform; the co-founder of
InklingMarkets.com, a Paul Graham yCombinator startup; and Robin Hanson,
the visionary economist and inventor whose pioneering work paved the
way. The event is open to the public and will emphasize practical
lessons and hands-on advice. After brief presentations from each
speaker, Surowiecki will open up the session for discussion with the
audience.

confab.yahoo is Yahoo! TechDev’s new open microconference series. Join
academic and industry experts from across the valley and the country as
they discuss the latest technologies and their applications and see for
yourself what’s next on the web. Attendance is free and open to the public.

[John Maloney (Skype: jheuristic)]

David --

Wow! This is hot! Thanks. Kudos to Yahoo!

I will socialize broadly here in the valley. The PM Consortium Website has
been updated and the event has added to the blog. http://www.pmcluster.com/

Vendor and corporate sponsored events are a *critical* stage in the
innovation and diffusion lifecycle. Prediction Markets are tracking nicely!

Cheers,

John

John Maloney
IM/Skype: jheuristic
Blog: http://kmblogs.com/
ID: http://2idi.com/contact/=john.maloney

Assistant:

Sarah V. Jones
Email: sa...@colabria.com
Phone: 978-468-0267
Fax: 206-984-2429

[Richard A. Relph]

David,

Thank you for the announcement. Purely by coincidence, I'll be in San Jose
then and I look forward to attending, learning, and meeting as many people
from this list as possible.

Richard Relph

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Predictio...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:Predictio...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of
> David Pennock
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 3:19 PM
> To: Predictio...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: confab.yahoo on prediction markets: Sunnyvale, Dec 13 5:30p
>
>

[matthewfog]

Thanks all for the advice. I'll let you know how it progresses.
Looking forward to the Yahoo event,

Mat