"How" to ponder the improbable for Average Joes.

A follow-up on some of the ideas that I had proposed on the possibilities of the open source communities and prediction markets to enable common people with the ability to "how to" ponder the improbable.

I had been thinking of an overall framework which mashup the models/concepts explained in Wikinomics and Wisdom of the Crowds.

1) Open source communities like Sourceforge can startup a new project; perhaps entitled "WikiPredict". This software (preferably an online tool) will be along the lines of DIANE. I would probably specify that it should include the following features:

• Search engines; in sourceforge I can see there already TrackerDog, SearchSaver, Carrot2 and many others. ( I did not evaluate the suitability of use, but just citing some examples.)


• Wikis or Content Management software; again in sourceforge there current projects like ProWiki, NI Wiki and so forth.


• Data mining and Analytical software along the lines of Google Analytics with nice reporting charts there can be used to break down data ; in sourceforge, Decision Studio Professional looks promising through its description.

Basically, this WikiPredict system would require the 3 components to be fully integrated, tightly coupled with each other and to allow participants to have an effective and efficient manner of searching, collating, analyzing and sharing the information across the community.

Now, with the technology/tools settled, and we can now move on to the framework on how to run this WikiPredict system.

2) A WikiCommunity of people sharing the same interests in areas of politics, economics, cultural, medical or social aspects can form together to use the WikiPredict system. Of course, the particular WikiCommunity must define its purpose and mission. I would term this group of participants as "peer research analysts" producing high quality peer-analysis of world events.

3) Once an event has been so called "predicted", the active participants would then create a prediction market in the same website for the rest of the community (the 80-90% of people). Of course, it should be open to wider network if possible inviting participants from other area of interests as well. This is to encourage diversity too.

From then on, the success of these WikiPredict, WikiCommunity and Crash Prediction Market would be dependent on the quality of the participants. Knowledge can be shared, tools are open-sourced. Perhaps the community can even use Cognitive Edge Methods or other suitable frameworks that are open-sourced thus making it a more robust and accurate system.

Hopefully, if such a mass collobarative effort does materialise, Mr. Average Joes may just be able see through the invisible, connect the dots and therefore would be able to act upon the information given thus avoiding the stock market bubbles, property crashes, resource shocks and other disastrous events.

It may be argued that even with the best intelligence or information at hand, most people may not even have the capacity or courage to act upon it. However, the main purpose of this post is not to debate on that, but rather it is about how to allow the average person to have the ability to ponder the improbable.