In 2004 James Surowiecki published his now-famous book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. For many this milestone introduced the era of collective intelligence for people, business, institutions, the environment and civil society.

New ways to share, trade and aggregate information using Internet-based markets are exploding. These powerful Web 2.0 network knowledge markets help companies, schools, governments and individuals to acquire and master ever-growing bodies of knowledge. These prediction market capabilities achieve mastery knowledge management (KM) and collective intelligence with stunning speed, efficiency and accuracy.

Collective Intelligence Summit: Leading Enterprise Prediction Markets
I happened upon this press release about a summit event at the U of MN about prediction markets. Though the marketing of this event is so laughingly bad that I had to go BACK to the press release to figure out how much it costs ($399) — since this event page is confusing, poorly laid out and appears to be targeted at a group of people already in-the-know — the potential of receiving benefit from attending it makes slogging through this inadequate communication worthwhile.

While this summit might seem a bit esoteric or academic (which it just might be), if you’re working on collaboration, enterprise social media or connected innovation, this is something you might find invaluable.

From their site:

What are Prediction Markets? Also known as information markets (PM), decision markets, idea futures, and virtual markets, prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions. Assets are created whose final cash value is tied to a particular event, outcome or parameter (e.g., total sales next quarter). The current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter.

People who buy low and sell high are rewarded for improving the market prediction, while those who buy high and sell low are punished for degrading the market prediction. Evidence so far suggests that prediction markets are at least as accurate as other institutions predicting the same events with a similar pool of participants.

One of the oldest and most famous is the University of Iowa’s Iowa Electronic Market. It has been predicting the results of American presidential elections since 1988 with greater accuracy than polling companies.

DETAILS:

Where: Carlson School of Management, Executive Center Room 2-206 (Directions)

When: Thursday 18 June  2009, 8:00am – 5:00pm

Registration is here (Secure, online registration is required and includes meals, refreshments, materials and Wi-Fi)

Questions?: Please Contact Sarah V. Jones, sarah.jones@pmclusters.com, Tel: 978-468-0267, Fax: 206-984-2429



The University of Minnesota’s Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering, is offering a workshop in their Tech Tune-Up series for 2009.

Here are the details:

2009 Tech Tune-Up will expose professionals to breakthroughs and innovations coupled with insights and commentaries from internationally renowned researchers and practitioners. It will hone the competitive edge of participants and help them stay ahead of market and technology changes in today’s competitive environment.

Join our internationally renowned researchers and practi tioners for insights and informati on about University of Minnesota’s successful economic collaborations, energy technology solutions and bio-related advancements.

• What: Lectures and panels will be given by experts from industry and the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology (full schedule on lower half of this page)
• When: Friday, June 12
• Time: 7:30 a.m. – 5 p.m
• Where: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building (full directions here)
• Cost: $250 per person (includes course materials, lunch and breaks)
• Register here
• Additional information: 612-625-2855