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."

Business Model

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

this is the most stupid idea I have ever heard out of them. They actually will compensate you, with a rocking 6-mo web-subscrption to economist.com (street value: roughly $50).

Perhaps the Economist should actually talk to their economists, and ask them what 'Incentive Compatability' means. $50 for a new revolutionary business idea surely isn't incentive compatible. If I were the Economist, I'd be terribly embarassed about this.

I couldn't agree more. They're failing at the first hurdle. Even worse, the terms upon which the idea is submitted basically means they can use the idea in any way they like and they will hold a patent on it. So it's not just getting a poor level of compensation for an idea, but giving that idea up for use by anyone except the Economist Group. Here are 4 clauses from their terms and conditions [projectredstripe.com]:

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.

2. The licence shall include, without limitation, the irrevocable right in the name of The Economist Group or its designees throughout the universe in perpetuity in any and all media now or hereafter known (i) to reproduce, prepare derivative works, combine with other works, alter, translate, distribute copies, display, publish, perform, license the Submission, and all rights therein; (ii) to apply for and obtain a patent in respect of any inventions disclosed in the Submission; (iii) to file an application to register any designs and/or any sign capable of being registered as a trade mark; (iv) to register any name capable of being registered as a domain name.

3. In addition, you agree that you will (at the request and expense of The Economist Group) enter into such documents as may be required to perfect or secure such rights or to assign such rights to The Economist Group absolutely if so requested.

4. In exchange, if we use your Submission then we will give you credit by acknowledging you as a contributor on our website at ProjectRedStripe.com and if we launch a product or service thanks to Submission, we will also offer you a free six-month subscription to Economist.com. Where The Economist Group applies for a patent in respect of an invention of which you are the inventor The Economist Group will name you as the (or if appropriate an) inventor in such patent application.

Re:Business Model

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.

not much different from VC'ers...

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.

Laugh as you might, but this is almost exactly what Venture Capital firms do. People beat on their door with business ideas, they pick the most profitable, dump some money in with ludicrously favorable (for them) terms, and see what happens.

One might say, "ah, but people benefit from VC money; here, people just get a magazine subscription." Well, I'd argue that the benefit to the idea-holder is about on par, comparing the two...

Model

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.

Ok, here's the deal

We make a beer. But just not any beer. A beer that's brewed in Jamaica mon.

Red Stripe Beer?

Ya know, this does explain the wacky-ness of the idea. It sounds just like what would come out of a brainstorming session with Red Stripe neuron lubricant.
[exec 1] *glug* *glug* *glug* *belch* Yeah, like lets ask the Internet what to to...
[exec 2] whadda we gonna call it? *glug* *glug*
[exec 1] [voice type=bevis-n-butthead] hu-hu-hu hu-uh like Red Stripe hu-hu-hu


SciTechPulse. Geek News Netcast. Hot Polynesian Geek Chick Host Silulu. [scitechpulse.com]

The plan so far

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!

Hint #1 - lose the "Web 2.0" crap.

Focus on content, not the technology, okay?

Now, decide upon what your content will be that will make it different or more useful than all the other content out there. That's hint #2.

Hold on...

They want us to come up with their business plan?

Well, ok. for a price I'll let them in on a way to turn their debt into wealth following my easy five step program. Soon, they will be able to afford the lifestyle they deserve. This is a risk free, money back guarantee on how to turn their outstanding debt into outstanding wealth.

Sorry, could not resist

1. Create Economics journal.
2. Let the people on Internet do your work. ...
3. Profit!

recursive business

They should start a business consulting for other groups who want to go into business but can't quite figure out what business they want to be in...

You Can't Create Innovation

This raises an interesting question about the value of ideas. Naively, one might guess that anyone with sufficiently good ideas for the Economist's future are a) already working there, b) already working for some other organization that will use them, or c) independent entrepreneurs, implementing their ideas themselves. However, there is a real possibility that forward-thinking people do exist outside those categories, and who are perfectly willing and able to articulate their ideas to others in an actionable way.

From the Economist's standpoint, however, creating an "innovation group" seems misguided. You can't *cause* innovation and creativity; you can only *allow* it to happen on its own. This occurs through maximal exposure to atypical influences, such as books, activities, people, and entertainment that one might not ordinarily choose. This, in fact, is how the brain grows -- by forming new synaptic pathways among its neurons.

The Economist, or any organization, can best innovate by encouraging *all* its employees to, in the course of their ordinary work, occasionally take a moment to submit to management their views of how the organization's processes or other aspects can be improved, as it occurs to them. Good management must know how to create this culture. Everyone can be an innovator.

Okay by me

Anything that the Economist does is okay by me. That organization consistently releases exceptionally informative and insightful articles. If there had to be an Information Ministry for an ideal one world government, I'd hope that it would be as useful as what the Economist is.

Well, for starters...

I am running 1024*768, and the page sucks. If they can't even get a request for what is wrong done correctly - this may explain what they are doing wrong!

Deal killer

From their FAQ [projectredstripe.com], on the subject of remuneration [projectredstripe.com]:

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.

Mavericks at Work

One of the "best business books" of the year 2006 that
the Economist recommended was:
Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win
By William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre. William Morrow

In the book the cover some open source business models.
One of their favorite example was an Canadian Gold mine
that opened up their data and asked for new mining designs
(or where to dig for gold in their fields).
Sounds like the Economist is following this business model.

Dogbert-esque

Give me $10000 a month, every month for the next 100 years. Your business will improve every year. If it doesn't, I'll just blame uncontrollable global market forces and claim your losses would have been more significant if not for me. It's bloody brilliant.

The Economist Magazine Looks Outside For Insight

Yes, what a model!!

I hardly think gathering "staffers", employees, from around the world, is outside-the-box thinking, LMAO!

Red Stripe

Yea, Economics!

Never give a sucker an even break

The knee jerk reaction to this sort of thing is that they are trying to get something for nothing on the backs of us under appreciated geniuses. I've
seen the NGASAEB W.C. Fields quote in The Economist many times so this mindset may actually exist in thier mission statement somewhere. However,
I have a list of ideas in my head that I would like to see happen but know I will never make them happen. Ideas--even really good ones--are cheap. The hard
part is making them happen. If they can extract something useful from the minds of the creative but uninitiated, bully for them.

N.b.: Corporations do this all the time... Consider the pharmaceutical industry. Without the research that they get for free in the form of research
articles that are in large part paid for by taxpayers the pharma companies would have to do WAY more R&D than they have ever done or will ever do.

They deserve to be

... doomed if all they can do was set up a lousy web site to ask for ideas from people on the street.

That said, that's what the so-called "business consultants" do anyway. So what do you expect?

(Note: I'm a long time Economist reader, I like it, although I do not necessarily agree with their sometimes-very-conservative view. I think they should throw those fuckheads out of the window instead of wasting time there.)

Humour Paper

When I read the Economist it strikes me their readers are interested mostly in humour pieces about world events, mixed with right-wing illusions and then also flashy ads.

In other words, it's in my mind in a league with "The National Enquirer", and "The Globe", of course with a different audience and subject matter, but of comparable actual usefulness.

Stephan

Who are these staffers?

It takes 6 staffers to run a blog?

And What's to Bet....

That, if they get a useful idea from the public, that they patent it (at least, in the US, where business method patents are allowed).

I'm not sure...

I have no idea if this plan will result in some way for The Economist to survive, but I hope they find a way to modernize where so many other papers are currently failing, because I've found them to be one of the single best sources for news in the world. Sure it's a week old by the time the paper (okay, "magazine") reaches my mailbox, but I still find myself learning more about topics that I'd previously only find headlines and blurbs about in mainstream national media. Sometimes the paper takes a stance I don't agree with (for instance, they basically support Bush's troop surge), however they present their stance on hot issues like this one in such a way that you really understand how someone can hold that belief rationally, rather than traditional media which simply tries to dismiss opposing viewpoints (or sometimes doesn't even present them, ala Fox "News"). It's refreshing to read compared to, say, AP source articles, which are written to the lowest common denominator. I suggest everybody take a look at their website to see what quality journalism in today's world can look like. The full content of next week's issue is available for free online (such is the nature of the internet), as well as some additional media content. If any paper deserves to survive the tradition to the new electronic era, it's this one....oh and I guess the NY Times should live, too.

Check them out: http://www.economist.com/index.html [economist.com]

Typically I would take the stance that if an industry can't adapt to the information age, it deserves to die... Leaner and meaner companies are still capable of competing in some markets, but journalism is an industry that by its vary nature requires more manpower to achieve success, yet their revenue streams are failing as people flock to the internet for news. The problem is, people ignore advertisements online and nobody has found another model that can support news organizations. Some companies will survive this "great dying": CNN and Fox News, for example, are owned by parent companies and are essentially pet projects of very rich men. It helps that television is still profitable, too. But must all independent news organizations be purchased to survive? Will the news industry solely survive as the philanthropic arm of gigantic megacorps in the future?

Wow

I'm reading a lot of what sound to me like childish viewpoints regarding their request for idea submissions. Great ideas are thought up every day. In bars and laundramats and grocery lines all over the world people come up with ideas. Most of them suck, and most of the rest are never shared with anyone, even if they're decent ideas. How many people thought of a chip-clip before somebody actually made and marketed one? My mom used to use clothes pins back when they weren't such a rare item. WAY before anybody sold a something called a chip-clip.

Back to the Red Stripe solicitation for ideas... you don't need to (and shouldn't) spend a lot of money on a fancy website, or promise riches, for what is essentially a request to be spammed with thousands of bar-napkin ideas from people who are otherwise very unlikely to do ANYTHING about their idea, including share it, if it weren't for Red Stripe.

If they have created a sort of small targeted think tank, then what they are really looking for is an endless flood of "inkblots" and doodles and crackpot ideas so they can sit around playing free association games in their effort to "innovate".

I seriously doubt they are expecting to receive a business plan for the next e-bay. But in exchange for the word "auction" they'll toss you a bone.

Sounds fair and bright to me.

Translation:

"We have no ideas."

I've got this brilliant idea ...

... which will cut transport carbon emissions by at least 75%.

BUT I'll share it with you lot only after I see a few million dollars / pounds / euros / whatevers. Yup, it'll work absolutely guaranteed!

Needs more Simpsons references

"Look at me. I'm reading The Economist. Did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?". http://www.duffzone.org/framegrabs/index.php?op=5& path=fabf14&file=fabf14-071.jpg [duffzone.org]

A fresh database to play in!

If they want free ideas from teh intarweb, I say we give them the kind of quality one can only expect from late night posting trolls.

Here's my entry:
====
Title: The New Operating Paradigm
Keywords:econ, windows, os, browser, mind-blowing, RSS

body: We're just now on Web 2.0, and there are people already writing and blogging about Web 2.1. Pretty soon we'll be on Web 3.1, and just like Windows 3.1, that means a new paradigm of using computers. When the browser becomes the operating system in a few months' time, people will personalize their computing environments like they personalize their office or dorm room. Econometricians will seek their own profit-maximizing fiscally-embedded platform from which to make their trades. That will be "Economist X, the Operating System."

How awesome is that?
====

Another fifteen or twenty thousand of those and they'll spend all summer just looking for the few kernels of free corn in a sea of jabbering chaff...

The Economist is the best..

The Economist is the best magazine ("newspaper") in the world, which is why I pay a premium price to subscribe to it. The entire USA, sadly, has nothing that comes close. Hey geniuses: don't change anything.

Cantor Fitzgerald comes to mind...

Cantor Fitzgerald is a bond trading firm, one of the few firms who can trade U.S. Government securities with the Federal Reserve Bank. They lost 658 souls on the 9/11 attacks, more than any other single company (their offices being above the impact site of One World Trade Center).

In the early 1990's, it became apparent that their traditional way of doing business was going away. The future lay in electronic trading, not in suits talking on phones. The problem was their entire culture was built up around the brokers working the phones. They soon realized that changing the entire culture of how they did business would be nearly impossible.

They realized that failure to change meant that newer startups would be soon coming online to take advantage of electronic trading, and that they would be doomed to a slow death of attrition as the competition cannibalized the marketplace.

Rather than waiting to be cannibalized by some unknown competitor, they decided to create their own competition, to create their own cannibalizing agent. Thus was the birth of eSpeed which went public in 1999. As the broker/dealer market declined, the eSpeed market took up the slack and eventually consumed the old guard completely.

The transition was so successful that before 9/11, Cantor handled about one-quarter of the daily transactions in the multi-trillion dollar treasury security market. The fourth quarter of 2001, after losing 2/3 their workforce, Cantor Fitzgerald posted a 25% profit.

Today, thousands of traders at hundreds of global financial institutions conduct transactions worth over $45 trillion annually in eSpeed's multiple buyer/multiple seller markets.

%-%-%

Traditional media is scrambling to remain relevant on the Net because the 1:1 communication provided by the internet has completely decimated their existing business model. They are used to owning the information gathering and distribution networks.

I have now completely abandoned the print media because I know that the reporting I will read is going to be one-sided, heavily slanted, while at the same time professing complete objectivity. How many print newspapers have had to shut down the online feedback on their editorial pages because the blowback was so overwhelming that they couldn't tolerate it?

Digg is nothing but a groupthink mob rules mentality with no decent way to hold an actual conversation, which is fine because the one thing the groupthink mob mentality abhors is open discussion, so Digg is a perfect match for them. The positive result is that the level of discourse on Slashdot forums have risen significantly now that the Diggers have gone.

I say that the future for The Economist would look a lot like Slashdot's discussions, where experts from around the world can opine on the news of the day.

I have more to add, but it is getting late.

It's their advertising agency's idea?

I'm willing to bet that the Project Red Stripe initiative springs from their current advertising agency - BBDO!

Why else would the team be situated at AMV-BBDO

Where is the project based?

Our digs are at AMV-BBDO, The Economist's ad agency, on Marylebone Road in London. Take a look at our web cam.

And Ad agencies (I've worked in one) are usually credited for such poor ideas..

we dunno

they figured others would have the best ideas -- so are throwing open the doors for community input

In other words "er, we dunno!".

'Net = decentralized; Red Stripe = centralized???

Their bosses obviously don't get it (same 'ol same 'ol). Before the project the employees were scattered around the world, communicating via the Internet. When the project was created (to create something relevant for the internet) all of the project leaders were required to move to London and sit in conference rooms. As we all know, conference rooms are the worst place for innovation to take place. So the only idea they came up with was to throw their arms up in the air and beg for help.

Economist must be in some deep Sh*t...

This has got to be one of the lamest things I have ever seen ...

"We already have some ideas, of course. But as champions of free markets, we abhor the concept of a closed system. This is why we would like you to submit your idea by filling out the form at ProjectRedStripe.com. The deadline is March 25th, 2007."

They abhor closed systems? Why aren't they sharing any of their ideas?

"Your idea can be as simple or complex as you like. It could be a product, a service or a business model. Before you jot your idea down, think about how best to describe it (here are some hints for doing this). If you want to track our progress, please visit our blog, where we would love to hear from you."

Okay, I have two great ideas for you!

a) Online pet supplies for those on a budget.... ECONOPETS.COM

b) Online delivery service for those on a bugdget ... ECONOVAN.COM ......

jeeeeeez.

Tilting at windmills

There are no 'revolutionary business ideas'. For a century people have been conditioned to expect electronic media to be free, while print media has always been for-pay. The 'revolution' will be in changing those expectations. That just takes time.

I'd also add that electronic media hasn't caught up to paper media in the area of convenience. I can roll up a copy of the Economist and stick it in my back pocket and read it while I'm waiting in the doctor's office. To read the Economist.com I have to take a laptop (or at the very least a PDA) and I have to somehow get the articles downloaded onto it first or rely on wi-fi service wherever I'm going.

Please don't change...

Please don't radically change the Economist. It's one of the few print publications that I still read.

The high signal-to-noise ratio of the articles and "better than grade school English" standards are rare anywhere, let alone in print. Don't change over to a sensational headlines + ads rag in the search for higher revenues.

You guys are missing the point

Most of the comments I've seen have been on the level of "those guys want us to do their job for free. Right" or "this is stupid and will never work."

Flip it around and be selfish: The Economist has a certain set of resources: primarily access to a set of reporters around the world and some cash. If you're a reader, you know what the magazine (aka "newspaper") is like. So what would you prefer it to be? That is: what's the XXX in "gosh, if only someone would do a XXX, I'd be glad to buy it?" Tell them to make that for you!