Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
human computation
social computing
crowdsourcing
wisdom of crowds (e.g., prediction markets)
group memory and problem-solving
deliberative democracy
animal collective behavior
mechanism design
organizational design
public policy design
ethics of collective intelligence (e.g., “-digital sweatshops”-)
computational models of group search and optimization
emergence of intelligence
new technologies for making groups smarter
I renew my call for boycotting the $400 vendor conference on prediction markets. Don’-t pay $400 to listen to prediction market software vendors. (They should pay you $400, rather, to listen to their marketese.) They highly exaggerate the usefulness of prediction markets (and enterprise prediction markets, in particular). They don’-t have a single use case to demonstrate their usefulness. There is no way you will get any R.O.I. out of those vendor conferences held in a phone booth.
Plus, the SF organizer of these conferences is a guy that has the detestable habit of hiding his identity under many pseudonyms (a female secretary, a “-legal assistant”-, a foundation director, etc.). This guy is a mythomaniac. Stay away.
Read Paul Hewitt’-s blog, instead. It is free —-and it tells the truth.
I’m in the process of researching Prediction Markets as the main theme of a national conference for the Institute for International Research, the world’s largest conference producing firm. http://www.iirusa.com
I am a producer at IIR and am interested in creating an advisory board made up of a handful of the most knowledgeable and experienced professionals in this industry. I have come across many of the names on this blog through my research and thought this would be the best place to reach to all of you. IIR produces hundreds of conferences ranging from a wide array of topics every year. i.e.: market research, pharma, technologies, financial services, etc. Prediction Market is a topic that we are hoping to tackle this year. I would greatly appreciate any insight and tips experts are willing to offer. I plan to turn this event into an annual gathering that attracts Researchers, Strategists, Project Managers, Venture Capitalists, Entrepreneurs, Researchers, Academics, Policy Makers, and Analysts. I will also be looking to recruit speakers as we move along to the next phase of production. Thank you in advance for your contributions.
Best,
Dawn Olsen
Conference Producer
Marketing &- Business Strategy Division, IIR
708 Third Avenue, 4th Floor, NY, NY 10017
646-895-7329 [email protected]
Please join us at the Third Workshop on Prediction Markets, in Chicago on the afternoon of July 9, 2008. We plan academic talks, an industry panel, and open discussion. Participation is open to anyone, and we hope to be as flexible as possible in allocating speaking time. See the workshop website or the full Call for Contributions and Participation for details.
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Signal Vs. Noise:
Web Conferences: Where’-s the outrage?
Over the past 7 years I’ve probably been to almost every major web industry conference at least once. I can’t remember the last time I saw a good honest disagreeable debate on stage. There’s too much “yeah, totally” and “I definitely agree” and “Absolutely” going around.
Panels of friends
Part of why this happens is that the web design industry as a whole is pretty chummy when it gets together. That’s not a bad thing, but it amplifies the echo chamber. Another reason why this happens is that when people put panels together they usually put their friends on them. Friends can disagree, but it doesn’t happen in public very often. Finally, most of the panels I’ve seen aren’t assembled to present three different points of view — they are assembled to present the same point of view in three different ways.
Conferences are meek, Blogs are strong
There’s plenty of debates going on over the web. Take the recent Calcanis vs. Hansson round. And then the recent Norman vs. 37signals exchange. And then there are the savvy provocateurs such as Michael Arrington that suggested 37signals drove a company to the deadpool because we encourage people charge for their products. We didn’t respond on the web, but it would be fun in person. These back and forths are wonderful. They are passionate, interesting, and heated. People are forced to sharpen their position and everyone learns a thing or two. They expose important discussions and spawn new ones. They also generate a lot of traffic for those involved. So why does the web have all the good debates? Where are the web conferences pitting two opposing viewpoints on stage? Hearing two passionate points is a great way to reevaluate what you believe. Where’s the web conference called Web Fight Night? I see a big market opportunity. […-]
Conference speakers should be more bombastic. 
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Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse: