Bruce McConnell
Prediction Markets and Collective Intelligence 

Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Building 3 Auditorium - 3:30 PM
(Refreshments at 3:00 PM)

Prediction markets harness the "wisdom of crowds" to predict future events. The long-est running market, the Iowa Electronic Markets (http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/(link is external)), has consistently predicted election results better than any poll. Prediction markets are now being used by major companies, primarily internally for management purposes, such as predicting the number of bugs in the next chip design (Intel). McConnell will talk about the theory behind the markets, key issues affecting their reliability, and relevant legal and policy issues. He will also discuss the results of a special set of markets set up just for this address. You can reach and participate in those markets at:https://governmentfutures2.inklingmarkets.com/(link is external).

Bruce McConnell is an independent consultant who has led and managed transitions in suc-cessful for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations of all sizes. He founded McCon-nell International, LLC, a Washington-based consultancy that provides counsel to corporate sen-ior management responsible for developing and executing near-term and long-term market strat-egy, wherever government is a factor. He also created Government Futures, a Web 2.0 company that used collective intelligence, including prediction markets, to help firms look further out in an increasingly volatile business environment. McConnell served three U.S. Presidents as an adviser on national information society issues. As chief of information and technology policy at OMB, he led the government-industry team that reformed U.S. encryption export policy, created an in-formation security strategy for government agencies, redirected government technology pro-curement and management along commercial lines, and extended the presumption of open gov-ernment information onto the Internet.

IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Emma Antunes