Could prediction markets help you create an engaging long-term experience?

Google has been experimenting with an internal prediction market to forecast their product launches, office openings, and some of their other important events. A prediction market is a virtual stock exchange where people buy and sell stocks of specific events (e.g. A democrat will win the U.S. presidency in 2008) which will each payout $1 (usually virtual money) if the event actually occurs. With many people buying and selling, the resulting price of the stock then represents the probability that the event will occur. (E.g. $0.50 = 50%) More on prediction markets.

Google’s prediction market is an experiment on whether these markets accurately forecast the likelihood of events. (read article for more).

Google came up with a couple conclusions:

1. Prices in their prediction market accurately reflected the likelihood of events actually happening
2. As time went on, the accuracy of these predictions improved

So if you are not one of the world’s largest companies, with a thousand or so staff to participate in an internal prediction market –how could such a market help you?

Do you run any contests or execute events with thousands of consumers?

Would you like to tap into the knowledge these consumers?

Does your company or organization have a “gatekeeper” who decides what content will best engage your audience at large events? – (E.g. chooses the bands for a festival, chooses the set of speakers for a conference)

Think about combining a contest with a prediction market, giving your audience some of the “gatekeeper” role, to create an engaging and long-term experience while also generating consumer insight.

Example:

I was lucky enough to attend a presentation by Piers Handling recently, the CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). As I learned, TIFF prides itself on being a very audience centric organization. It relies heavily on a group of 15 “programmers” (gatekeepers) to pick the movies that draw approximately one million admissions* per year, and international acclaim. It was also interesting to hear, that one of the ways TIFF judge the quality of their programming choices is to see whether the chosen films or directors win international awards in the years after appearing at TIFF.

Would TIFF dare to open up a spot in its program to an audience member? – giving them the some of the gatekeeper role.

TIFF could combine a prediction market with a contest (or likely a series of contests). The prediction market would have the typical incentives to earn simulated money by buying and selling virtual shares in movies, directors, and actors. The contest could then provide additional incentive. The most successful participant would become be a temporary “programmer” picking a film for the festival as well as getting all the access that this position affords. This could be global too. Yeah, that’s another thing I learned, TIFF attracts a significant audience with events run all over the world.

If they did, not only would they have a highly engaging contest, but the existing 15 programmers may find that they also get another useful source of information to identify, assess, and ultimately choose the great films we see at TIFF every year.

Key things for you to think about, if you want to run a prediction market:

• Number of people – to have market accuracy, you need a lot of people
• A public event(s) (or information you can make public) to “bet on”
• Relevance of the event to your business

*895,879 admissions were reported for 2006 - TIFF

Hyper-Multi-Youth: Trioro at the Millennials Conference

Last week, we took a trip around the corner to attend the Millennials conference kicking off Canadian Music Week here in Toronto.

Here are a few of my notes from that day...

What is a Millennial?
Generally speaking, we're talking about people born leading up to and around the year 2000. To be honest - I'm still not sure what the exact definition is. What was obvious was that every description seemed to be prefaced by the term "multi".

• Multi-taskers
• Multi-media
• Multi-cultural
• Multi-facetted
• you get the point

I rolled my eyes a bit when one speaker halfway through the day came up to the stage to declare that "multi" was the wrong word and that we really should be using "hyper". Okay sure, trying to prove a point, that's fine, but really!?

In my mind, the best definition came from Ted Cohen about halfway through the day:
"1 in 2 people in the room don't do it the way we're describing: multi-threading, not-multi-tasking is making a lot of this possible."

The statistics and research being done to conclude that millennials are multi-taskers are concluding that this generation is packing 26 hours of activity into a 24 hour day. Huh? Well, if you have the radio on while you're studying with instant messaging open on your computer... that's being counted as 3 activities at once. Is this really different from any other generation? Are older generations really that archaic that they are incapable of walking and breathing? What if I fall asleep with the TV on!?

I digress...
The traits are obviously still applicable and yes, millennials are using technology to increase productivity and connectivity while having fun at the same time. The truth is, they are multi-threading. Several processes operating at once with cycle time being swapped quickly from one individual task to another. (Yes, I just compared a millennial to a computer processor... kinda seemed fitting.)

What else can describe a Millennial?
From Dr. Mike Atkinson:

• Double income "cherished" generation.
• Used to a lot and and expect a lot.
• Driven by fun and high energy.
• Strong community spirit.
• Very family oriented.
  
• Confident.

These themes were certainly reiterated throughout the day. People growing up now are certainly citizens of the global village. Millennials respond to global causes, environmental activism and feel a sense of self that is larger than the individual.

A bit more on the environmental note can be found over here.

Before I close out, I'll mention a couple of comments offered by Alan Cross:

• 50% of all millennials have never set foot in a record store and never will
• Today's rebellion songs are more about peace and global issues

Blogged with the Flock Browser

What makes a good online community?

Many companies have been playing around with the online community idea to help build relationships with, and around, their brand. Have you seen any good examples lately?

Here are four important questions to ask yourself, if you are thinking in that direction.

Ongoing, or Temporary?
It is important to decide whether you want the community to be an indefinite entity, or created around a specific objective or time frame which will have an end. This decision is important because it frames the type of communication, the tools that should be used, and when resources are needed.

How do you decide between indefinite and temporary?

• An indefinite community likely already has existing off-line versions – tap into them. It will also tend to focus around a broad idea and have many sub goals/objectives.
• A temporary community needs a compelling and relevant objective. It may not have an existing off-line community, but has a latent desire passion waiting to be expressed.

Who are the trusted filters of your community?
There is a lot of information out there, which can’t always be trusted. A community creates good spill-over effects when trusted members assess information, find what is valuable, and share it with the group. Who is playing this role in your community? It’s not always your prime target, but it’s a role that creates a lot of value in the community.

What is the relevant shared value or purpose, and how is it recognized?
Though this seems very straight forward, it is often missed when “communities” are simply built around an open forum or a contest without mechanisms to reward those who take their time to participate and contribute.

What resources are accessed through the community?
This is the basics of incentive. What valuable resource/asset can be received from the community, which isn’t easily accessible somewhere else.

Trioro takes the High Road

Trioro is proud to announce the addition of High Road Communications to its growing list of clients in Marketing and Communications industries.

“Trioro has provided valuable technical capability that has been instrumental to delivering results for our clients” Martin Hofmann, Senior Vice President, High Road Communications