Inkling Markets capture the collective intelligence of a diverse group of people to give you insight about what may happen in the future. Typically, a question is posed. For example, “Will the Dow Jones be bought out by News Corps?” The possible answers are represented as stocks. You can buy and sell shares in these stocks to express your opinion on what you think is going to happen. As a diverse group of people expresses their opinion of what they think will happen using this market mechanism (the wisdom of the crowd), an accurate prediction can be elicited.

How can these Inkling Markets be used to address your business problems? You can either build a marketplace inside your own organization, or create a new external communication channel for your customers. The market on itself can be used for different purposes:

• Forecasting performance indicators such as revenues, sales, and quality metrics;
• Fostering innovation by creating a marketplace of ideas;
• Improving competitive and industry analysis;
• Building new interaction channels with customers and business partners; and
• Decreasing risk in managing large product development efforts.

Some companies are already using the platform:

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As explained before in Google crowdsources Gmail M-velope Video, Google organized a fun and successful viral video competition. This week, the complete collaborative video was presented to the public. A simple concept, great publicity, and a fun video as final result. Who’s next?

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This week, Google launched a viral video-competition. The Gmail Team is now accepting 10 second video clips featuring the red envelope on the right (M-velope). The best videos will be strung together into a collaborative video that will be featured on the Gmail homepage.

Want to make some fun with your family, friends, or colleagues? Download and print the signature M-velope, record a 10 second video where someone hands the Gmail M-velope in from the left of the screen, does something, and then hands it off to the right, and then upload that video on YouTube. Clips are due by August 13, and the final video (set to music) will be released to the world on August 20, 2007.

It will be interesting to see how much buzz they can build and how many will take part. With respect to crowdsourcing, the M-velope initiative is not revolutionary though. It’s mainly a fun way to kill summer boredom.

As a lot of crowdsourcing initiatives are featured on blogs and websites, it may seem like many many companies have adopted strategies to tap into the wisdom of the crowd. In reality however, most companies have not yet developed such strategies. Therefore, organizing a fun video competition could be a first step in exploring what crowdsourcing is about, and how it could benefit your company’s business.

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