The Economist Magazine Looks Outside For Insight

An anonymous reader writes "All of traditional media is scrambling to remain relevant on the Net, but The Economist of London is taking it to extremes, with a skunkworks operation called Project Red Stripe. The magazine gathered six staffers from around the world, set them up in a London office, and gave them six months to come up with a radically new idea for the business. As a magazine for free markets, they figured others would have the best ideas — so are throwing open the doors for community input."

Comments

Business Model

[ChadAmberg]

Man, that rules as a business model.

I'm hired to come up with new ideas. Paid who knows how much $$. So rather than do any actual work, I'm going to let the internet schmucks do it for me! I just have to pick which ideas are best.

Man, I'm in the wrong job...

Re:Business Model

[zippthorne]

1. You grant to The Economist Group and its designees a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive fully-paid up and royalty free licence to use such Submission without restrictions of any kind and without any obligation of payment or other consideration of any kind, or permission or notification, to you or any third party.

Let's not ascribe more evil than necessary.

The plan so far

[wombatmobile]

The magazine gathered six staffers from around the world, set them up in a London office, and gave them six months to come up with a radically new idea for the business.

In the first week, the staffers bought beer, wine, wisky, condoms, flat screen televisions and gaming consoles.

In the second week, the staffers hired a young graphic artist through the internet for $35 per hour to set up a rudimentary web page asking for innovative ideas.

The next 5 months is a blur.

The final two weeks were a flurry of activities. So many good ideas to review! So little time!

Deal killer

[Somnus]

From their FAQ, on the subject of remuneration:

What will I get for submitting an idea?

Unfortunately, we can give no direct reward or compensation for your contribution. If, however, Project Red Stripe chooses to develop an idea you have submitted, you will receive recognition on the Project Red Stripe web site and a free six-month subscription to Economist.com.

I'm sure as hell not giving a money-making idea to the Economist Group if I'm not getting a piece of the pie. If it might save the world, maybe; if it's not money-making and helps folks, I probably would.

Model

[Mark_MF-WN]

This seems doomed to failure. You think comittee thinking is bad? Imagine a comittee of tens of thousands or more. Filtering good ideas out of the gibberish would be a gargantuan undertaking -- probably one that is more difficult than just thinking up your own ideas. Didn't the article say that they got some of the best minds in the business? So why would those great minds turn to a few thousand sub-mediocre minds? Given the choice, I'll take half a dozen smart people locked in a room with a whiteboard and an espresso machine over ten thousand jackasses making decisions by mob thinking.

It's interesting how in every modern war, the government that wins (assuming there is anything even vaguely like a winner) invariably puts a very small group of top military minds in charge of the war effort, even to the point of managing relevant aspects of the economy. Losers do just the opposite -- they let their legislature, congress, senate, president, chairman, corporate interests, beauracrats, and cronies make war decisions. And naturally, they either make retarded decisions or they rob the public blind at the expense of the war effort.

Comittee thinking is a disease. The bigger the comittee, the worse it gets. Human collaborative efficiency for creative works tops out at around 4 or 5 people. If you hope to invent new paradigms, you'll be hard-pressed to accomplish it with even as many a three people, and even two is pushing it.