My first of many blog posts

As recently announced on our blog, I recently joined Inkling as Director of Business Development. I am excited about my new position and look forward to helping the company continue to grow, with the goal of making prediction markets more of a mainstream business intelligence tool in corporate America.

My interest in prediction markets has been growing over the years. I first became aware of them from a web site that was using markets to predict changes in technology trends. In addition, like Inkling's founders Adam and Nate, I have worked for a variety of large companies and many times during my 20 year career, I was extremely frustrated when decisions were made by a select number of senior managers, without taking advantage of all the knowledge around them. In my personal experience, decisions made by senior management were often altered or even reversed when it became apparent that they were wrong; it was only then that less senior employees were consulted and their insights considered. Not the most productive way to run a company…

Not long before I was introduced to Inkling, I had the opportunity to meet James Surowiecki, the author of “Wisdom of the Crowds” at a business meeting in Miami. I am an incredibly loyal reader of Surowiecki’s New Yorker column, but I had never read his book. After, Suroweicki’s talk, I was given a signed copy of “Wisdom of the Crowds”; I read the entire book on the plane ride home to Chicago. Then, just a few months later, I met the Inkling founders and knew this was the opportunity for me.

As part of my role I am interested in getting feedback from traders regarding how to improve the Inkling platform. I know a lot of Inkling’s traders provide comments and suggestions, and I encourage you to keep sending them.

Finally, during my first weeks at Inkling, I created a number of markets on our public marketplace and am anxious to see how they turn out. Some of the markets I have created include:

• What will the voter turnout be for the presidential election in November? At this point, there is no clear consensus on the question so getting more insights would be great.

  
  

• For 2008, how much will renewable energy represent of the nation’s total energy consumption? With so many variables to consider as it relates to this question – gas prices, regulation, energy demand – it will be interesting to see the ultimate answer.

  
  

• What will the market share for Google's new browser (Chrome) be at 12/31/2008? Considering all that Google has accomplished in its short ten year life, it easy to imagine that Chrome will ultimately be a winner. But how long will it take?
  

I look forward to hearing from you in the future.