My Weekend Reading

This weekend I realized that I hate long weekends. No school Monday and I am going crazy. I started reading various economics blogs which linked out. One story was about Gisele Bundchen wanting to remain the world's richest model and is insisting that she be paid in almost any currency but the U.S. dollar. This story made me think about how I wish I could be paid in Euro$.
Another story that caught my eyes was from Forbes about prediction market software. As the story points out most businesses and organizations 'under-utilize the value of one of their most coveted assets: the institutional knowledge of their employees, business partners and customers.' It made me think about our customers, the students. Is there a survey of our students? If yes where can it be found?
The Prediction markets work by soliciting input across a diverse group of "traders" inside and/or outside the organization. This sounds like shared governance.
The following are the steps for implementing such a system:

The first step in implementing a prediction marketplace is identifying the risk factors you want to monitor and the questions you want to ask about those risk factors.

The second step is deciding who will participate in your prediction market. Typically, you want as large and diverse a group as possible. Even departments traditionally not involved in decision-making processes may have a perspective that is useful to capture. If confidentiality of information is an issue, find a platform that lets you limit access to some questions and grant wider access to others.

Giving you time to address risk factors before they become serious issues is a key operational and competitive advantage. Prediction markets help cut through the clutter inherent in any large organization by revealing what people really think to ultimately create a more transparent environment where problems are known earlier and therefore addressed more effectively. Though managers may be uneasy about losing control over information they could once spin, most leaders agree: It is always better to know about a problem early on and put a plan in place while it's still containable. The alternative, as we have all learned, is crisis communications.

The article seems like a sale job. It is a commercial posing as an article but I looked at the Inkling Markets website and found some interesting ideas (I just may be really bored and think they are interesting).
For example I liked the following idea:

Idea Box / Idea Database / Idea Wall: A special email address, database, or physical space is set up to collect ideas by anyone in the company. Typically the ideas collected are reviewed on a periodic basis or are forwarded to an expert or manager in the area the idea pertains to. Metrics may be collected that measure the number of ideas created or the internal department or group with the most ideas and employees are measured on how often they've contributed.

But the idea I liked best was the following from their Build community page:

...what if you could make your users part of the content equation with a minimal amount of effort on your part? What if they could pose questions about the topic area they are already interested in and have others predict what's going to happen? Suddenly there is an entirely new channel of content available to your users that is completely self generating.

This new channel can be purely entertainment or can be designed for your customers or business partners to make them feel they are helping to drive product development.

I imagined a section on the Rio Hondo website where students, faculty, and classified staff can make suggestions. Then others can hit a buttons with Great idea or Terrible idea.
However I am back to reality now and can not wait till Tuesday when I go back to school to fight against terrible ideas and enjoy the good ones too.