Websites, particularly Web2.0 sites, (can) solve network and informational inefficiencies. Yet if the contributors are not sufficiently compensated, there are few barriers to prevent them leaving, or having their idea somewhere else (an established network is, of course, a barrier, but the short history of ‘Web Communities’ and even Open Source projects, shows that users can herd around a few prominent users when they leave). I work making ‘contributory websites’ and pushing the envelope of rewarding users in as close a way (and there of lots ways, some of which I have figured out and some which surely I haven’t) to match their contribution. You’re the Economist Group, you should have thought about this, they’re all basic economic concepts and pretty interesting to consider.

Is this post enough for a 6 month (~$50) web subscription?

Let the visitors filter out the good ones ! You’re supposed to be sharing, but in reality you’r just hoarding. In the new world, hoarding sucks, ergo: you suck …

We thought a lot about both of these - i.e. why only a six-month subscription for your idea and why don’t we post ideas immediately?

Taking the second point first, we considered this with the idea that comments on each post would be a way of voting for or developing them further. Having seen some of the “ideas” posted, it’s probably just as well that we didn’t just publish them immediately because of their offensive nature. We did consider the merits of a “Digg” style system (rather than a Dell IdeaStorm one!) but rejected it for two reasons, the main one being that we want to be able to develop ideas independent of the public posting system (or do what we’re paid for, as one poster pointed out). The other reason was that we felt that all the ideas would not be as well developed and that this together with the sheer number of ideas posted might make voting tricky.

I know that there are ways round this, but the fact is that we are only six people and that we only have six months. We felt that to develop and support a decent voting system would not be the best use of our time right now (if that’s The Idea, though watch this space).

Taking the first point, if you have an idea that will stand the test of VC funding, then go ahead and speak to one - our project is not for you.

What we wanted to do was to allow people that might be passionate about what The Economist does or could do to suggest things to us. So far, many of the suggestions are not more than what may better be called thoughts - that is, they need building into something that would allow them to be compared to other ideas, costed, etc.

We knew that these two points (and our Terms and Conditions) would be bones of contention, but we wanted to give you the opportunity to suggest stuff to us in an easy way. I hope that we’ve done that, even if (with more time) we could have done it differently.

Nothing I’ve read here demonstrates that you have a sense of mission (other than: I have to sound enthusiastic about this wild fishing expedition for million dollar ideas to seem deserving of the goodies there might be in this for me) or the first clue about how you need to interact so that it might generate a creative intellectual exchange about developing (possibly crazy) ideas. And, hell, those you want to impregnate your barren world with wonderful new ideas aren’t allowed to know and comment on each others thinking even. Say what ?!? Forget It ! This is not a place I need to come back to. You can come find and join us at some public forum, and participate. If you can tickle out some good ideas, well, you are welcome to walk off/away with them to go find your pot of gold at the end of some rainbow. You have my blessings.

Though I wish you well, So Sorry, I fear that dog won’t hunt! It got too many fleas…

I must agree with other commenters on the fact that the incentive structure being offered in order to encourage the submission of ‘radical’ business ideas is, at best, weak and most likely ineffective. What the current incentive model might attract are the kind of ideas and wish-list suggestions any long-term reader/subscriber of TEG publications could supply via a direct-marketing campaign which would cost a fraction of the GBP 100,000 allocated to this project.

As an observer of innovation and entrepreneurship matters, long-time Economist reader, and someone who is pondering whether to submit an idea or not, I humbly offer the following intuitions:

1. There is a wealth of interesting and potentially revolutionary ideas out there. However, what drives true innovators is passion, and the need to materialise change.

2. Yet, while ideas might abound, having the material and financial resources to implement them is a difficult proposition, and thus the marriage of the idea with an appropriate setting for it to flourish seldom occurs.

3. A corollary of the above is that an innovator will only release a veritably innovative idea if s/he can be guaranteed a stake in the development, implementation and coming-into-fruition of it.

4. The content and readership are already in place (something that would not happen in the case of a good albeit raw idea in search of VC funding) and those are your main assets.

In other words, if I have a great idea, and you have the content and infrastructure to see it through, why not make the idea-holder a stakeholder in the process? E.g. offering an internship or even a job as part of the group that will eventually implement the idea. That would also be a way to get highly-motivated, top-skilled, and commited people into the organisation. Additionally, it would bind the success of the idea with the success of the organisation, a nearly-certain way to ensure employee loyalty.

While I find a Creative Commons Attribution-like license to be appropriate for the dissemination of non-commercial works, this is a case of survival in a shifting business environment, and its nature necessarily proprietary.

As such, I suggest you make the innovator a co-proprietor.

Innovationsportal CeBIT Next sammelt Ideen
(http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/86562)

you’ll have to admit that that sounds more attractive than what has been presented here so far.
and best of all, you can participate and intigrate what you find interesting there to benefit your project!

p.s. if your German is too weak, you can spend some of your GBP 100,000 on someone to act as your intermediary — most nearly every educated central European should be able to translate for you…

Good Luck!

The preamble
When I was at school, during the holidays I’d sometimes go and stay at friends’ houses. We’d get listen to music, play sports, get drunk, chase girls and for a lot of the time, watch TV.
One of my friends, James Biddle, h…