The Wisdom of Crowds (Beta Version) by Jory Des Jardins (Fast Company, Dec. 2005) highlights a unique business experiment in distributed work. Rob May set up The Business Experiment (TBE) as a virtual incubator/online startup firm based on the wisdom of crowds, but the experiment is not exactly living up to the dream. As Rob states in a post on his home page, "I've struggled for some time to see where TBE is going.  Unfortunately, it is not going to end up where I had hoped, but that's because I was wrong in my assumptions."

Rob's September 10th post, What Have We Learned So Far?, captures some incredible insights into what people need to work best - and not just in a distributed environment. The wisdom in crowds was harnessed to select a business concept, but the five items show other issues are at play in executing that concept.

Rob's second and third "learned so far" items are both about worker incentives, discussing tweaks to the  current points system, and aligning projects with people's passions as seen in various Open Source success stories.

Figuring out the incentive issue is the key to the success of TBE's venture business. It's easy to recruiter philosophers and curiousity seekers to an innovative project, but real contributors will only stick it out during hard times and devote the hard work required if they are appropriately incentivised. It might be about financial gain, or it might be about passion, or better yet it should be about both!

This may start as a philosophical question, but trial and error should be allowed, encouraged, and in fact welcomed. It's a basic part of the innovation risk/reward cycle that many high-risk projects should be undertaken with the expectation that most will fail. The reward from the small fraction of successes will produce a payback to justify the program as a whole.

I suspect TBE is confusing their goal (learning how to harness the wisdom of crowds for business ventures), with the goal of the selected business venture. The solution is simpy to treat the TBE goal as an innovation program, and pursue MORE THAN ONE business venture. Encourage each project to evolve according to its participant's collective wisdom and see which variations thrive. Continue to harness the wisdom of the overall crowds, but perhaps some will be advisors working across multiple groups, while others are more active contributors zeroing in one a specific task.

To Rob and the rest I wish the best of luck. I hope you continue the TBE experiment to its logical - and successful - end.

1:53:06 PM    
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