Difference between revisions of "User talk:Martin"

Revision as of 13:15, 16 July 2007

Inventing that Helps Tiny Businesses

In general I am a student of “process”. I try to observe and understand what really makes things tick. This has relevance to transparency, democracy, and empowerment issues. Sometimes the most important things for the populace to know, are things that some relatively “few” people within the populace don’t want others to know. When students of process are observing and trying to understand your process, they risk being viewed as a pain in the neck – it’s not an activity where one should expect to get lots of “high fives”.

Some subjects that catch my interest are listed below:

Topsoil

Process Transparency

RiskParticipation

BetterAutomation

consensus polls

Martin, love your energy on this. Our current focus is on getting lots of examples of small consensus polls that succeed. Personally, I think that's what's needed to get to your step#1, of a foundation agreeign to try this crazy thig. We need a track record. Something we could use help on right now is the consensus poll tour. Interested in taking a look and either editing directly or providing feedback? Portal:ConsensusPolls Thanks! TedErnst

Ted, in terms of providing feedback about consensus polling I just did this at ConsensusPollingAwareness. There I bring up some strategic issues, such as whether a track record of small consensus polls will actually translate or be reflective of polling success process dynamics at much larger scales (million plus). Also in this section when I mention deep pockets it is not in the sense of foundations - I suspect they will be a long shot in contrast to individuals or corporations with deep pockets (from my experiences I have learned that nonprofit philanthropic foundations tend to be risk averse).

Martin, even if we don't need more of a track record before someone with deep pockets were willing to fund a huge consensus poll, the method is still largely untested. I don't feel confident yet that we have enough people that fully understand the process to make it work yet on a massive scale. I definitely think the method is sound, but the people to work the method are still lacking, and the people with the experience facilitating the method are definitely lacking. We have a ways to go yet in integrating consensus polling into the fabric of how AboutUs gets its work done. We're learning a ton, even on a small scale, about what it will take to make this work on a large scale. For example, when someone signs up to participate, they need to give an email address and set their preferences about how often they want to be contacted, all the way from "every change" to "only when the DoneTimer starts", etc. We also have found recently that we need a way to set someone's status to "inactive" if they don't respond after a certain amount of time. We're definitely moving forward. The tour is on the AboutUs company priorities for this two weeks. I'm working hard to get it done. I really appreciate your feedback! peace, TedErnst

Ted, thanks a bunch for filling me in!

My personal interest in consensus polling as a process, is as a potentially new way for Joe and Jane to make big (often expensive) things happen, when today for many reasons they simply can’t.

From that context consensus polling group size, is to me, a very important issue – without that it’s tough to gain the needed clout, etc. Also from this perspective I try to put myself, not into the shoes of one that is currently in the Wiki community, because I think as a demographic they are still a small slice of the population pie, rather a Joe and Jane that today knows nothing about Wiki culture.

In such shoes, I think many people taking the existing aboutus consensus polling tour will lose interest and simply not go through the learning curve. I suspect this is because many will look at the nature of the polling topic(s), then ask themselves how this impacts their personal life, then too often decide it does not have enough relevance or personal upside potential.

To disconnect the subject of the learning curve burden with the upside potential of a poll topic seems to me, to ignore an important human behavior characteristic. Said another way, I suspect that one can put in lots of hours of work refining and improving the consensus polling tour experience, yet still have little participation by new people (especially those outside today’s Wiki culture), because the poll topic is viewed by them as not having enough personal upside to endure the learning curve.

In contrast if there were a different class of poll topics, with much more potential to have bigger personal upsides for Joe and Jane, if I were creating the tour experience, I would hit Joe and Jane right between the eyes with these issues - upfront. For example:

Joe and Jane, take a look at this (or these few) poll topics. We think these can have a big impact on your life. But to gain the upside potential you have to put some skin in the game – put in some effort – for in the real world nothing is really free. Based on the positive responses from other people just like you, that have already gone through this learning process, we wager that you’ll think it was definitely worth your time and effort. Then one might can add some testimonials, etc.

In such regard I think Joe and Jane would definitely be much more motivated if they saw that a large pot of cash was sitting in a pot, waiting to go into action once the polling was completed. I think as people become more Internet savvy they increasingly become jaded by web sites that are in effect lots of talk and no action (I don’t have to give you the history of omidyar.net), so again they are not motivated enough to actually go through the consensus polling learning curve burden.

I would not hide the fact that there is some upfront pain (learning curve) involved. One can also slant this learning experience to being humorous, perhaps as if Joe and Jane are going through a military boot camp – maybe even with humorous cartoon pictures of the drill sergeant screaming into their faces.

One might argue that folks in the Wiki community are so passionate about the “culture” that they are already motivated to endure the consensus polling learning curve burden, where in contrast the uninitiated Joe and Jane public first want to see something like cash in a pot. If this is the case, then one would think that the totality of all Wiki sites and community would have a large enough number of people willing to endure the learning pain – yet I am not seeing this. And even then I think the polling topics would be skewed, and too often not be of interest to Joe and Jane (general populace), still outside the Wiki culture. Having a hot polling top for Joe and Jane, where they are so motivated they will endure the consensus polling learning curve, might just be a new way to lure Joe and Jane into the Wiki ways, whereas today many still don’t find enough personal relevance.

Martin, If you know how to get someone with deep pockets to give us money to start something like what you describe, I'm fairly certain that we can build what we now know is missing from the consensus polling process to use in that big effort. Go for it! I'm not entirely sure that the general public is interested in putting up with "bugs" in what's still really a beta process, but I'm also willing to work on it, at your lead. peace, TedErnst

Ted, you ask if I know how to get deep pockets to put money into the pot - to provide a consensus polling motivation for the general public. The short answer is no. I also don’t think the general public will be interested in putting up with “bugs” during a beta process. Maybe when folks like Brandon and Ray make their multi billions after an aboutus IPO (typically high growth business model cash in process) they will have an interest in doing such philanthropy. In the mean time due to the typical “no money” available problem I suspect this consensus polling “stuff” will involve rather small group sizes and niche topics for some time into the future.

Ted, in terms of increasing consensus polling participation from the general public by gaining their perception that a consensus topic has potential for real action rather than just “talk”, via some initial money in a project execution pot, philanthropic money might not be the best strategic approach.

Money from philanthropic sources is generally risk averse (due to complex process issues within the philanthropic sector). In contrast in the commercial sector where there are early stage angel inventors and venture capitalists, they are all about covering high early stage risk.

Attracting this type of commercial risk funding involves a sophisticated game of figuring our then telling these risk inventors what they want to hear, and part of this game is convincing them that they will make a lot of profit (returns) if they provide their money (this is the same money fueling dynamic that powers aboutus growth).

In such regard one can ask the question, “how can a consensus polling topic generate profit for these early stage investors?” For example if the topic involves creation of an alternative energy mini commuter vehicle, at some point people must buy this gizmo, and then cash becomes available to funnel back to the VCs.

Or perhaps these VC’s will fund research to create perennial rather than annual crop plants, with potential to make radical global environmental improvements while feeding more of the world’s poor (see related article in this months “Scientific American” magazine). When these new plants are purchased by farmers, and resulting crop products sold, some of this money can flow back to the VC’s.

When trying to execute such projects a critical process problem as I see it, is that these typical early stage investors want lots of control, since they take a high risk. To break past this typical barriers in effect one makes the following pitch to the VC’s: “Right now you folks make profit by maintaining a high degree of decision making control, in collaboration with very view key executives in a small growth company. In contrast with the new consensus polling process you can make more profit (returns) by giving up more of your typical control, and putting more strategic decisions into the hands of the general populace.

In this case the VC’s are betting that if they fund this new model they will make more money – which is the ultimate concern of VC’s. You can bet this pitch is also likely a tough sell, because early stage investors are so used to having high degrees of control, and this flies in the face of their personal life experiences.

In regard to this line of strategic thinking having lots of collaborating people like you and me might brainstorm to figure out how to make this consensus polling more attracting to angel investor and VC’s, so they put some money in the pot. In contrast the demographic that should have high participation involvement in this brainstorming, is actual angel investors and VC’s. The problem is they are typically very difficult to access, to gain their participation in this brainstorming.

Folks like Brandon and Ray already have access to these folks, and people like Brandon have lots of passion for consensus polling. If there is a serious aboutus intent to make bigger things happen via consensus polling, seems to me such folks are in a much better position than you or I to bring such money folks into brainstorming process. The aboutus early stage investors might not have interest in this line of discussion, but these investment folks typically operate within a broader investment community, and might know of others that would entertain this type brainstorming and make relevant introductions. Short of this type of “improved” censuses polling brainstorming participation I suspect the consensus polling process will have limited progress relative to making bigger and important things happen (from the perspective of the general populace).