Jul 13, 2005

An audacious experiment by Rob

Rob of businesspundit sent me a mail and has finally blogged about it which relieves me of the tension of keeping it a secret :-)

Rob wants to float the BusinessExperiment where Business bloggers and readers will test their cumulative business knowledge by collectively starting and running a business - out in the open.

We will solicit business ideas for products and/or services from the registered users. We will vote on those ideas. The top two will be put to a second vote where majority rules. That's the business we pursue. Who will write the business plan? We will vote on that. Who will we hire? Put it to a vote. What is our marketing strategy? Vote again. That is how the business will be
run.
Yes, we will hire real employees. They will keep blogs. We will podcast their meetings. At least, that is my intent for now. Those of you who think business is cool can have a sort of reality tv experience by watching what goes on as the business gets started and gets off the ground.Only registered users can vote, but once something is decided, it will be public. What about potential competitors? Well in addition to the "wisdom of crowds," we are also testing another concept - can the model of open-source software be applied to business? I think it can. If open source programs can compete with proprietary ones, open source businesses should be able to do the same.

Rob is basing his experiment on the premise of "Wisdom of the Crowds" so that makes the success dependent on a large number of interested people sign up for the experiment and would need need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions.

Radical enough to interest you? Then come and join in !

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