Cultivate Labs Blog

Discussing how crowd forecasting, internal crowdfunding, and other new workplace trends can be used to improve the #futureofwork

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By Ben Roesch on Aug 04, 2022

Why We Stopped Supporting Prediction Markets

For many years, Cultivate Forecasts supported two different forecasting interface modes: prediction markets and opinion pools (aka opinion surveys or probability surveys). In a prediction market, forecasters buy and sell shares of answer options using real or virtual/fantasy currency (ie. I spend $10 to buy shares of “Yes” in the market “Will candidate X win the election?”). In an opinion pool, forecasters assign a probability to each potential answer (ie. I for

By Adam Siegel on Dec 17, 2019

Prediction Markets give hope to reproducibility crisis in scientific experiments

I talk to Anna Dreber Almenberg, an economist at the Stockholm School of Economics about prediction markets she's running to try and address the reproducibility crisis in science.

By Vanessa Pineda on Nov 01, 2018

What are “flash crowds” and how do we recruit them?

Our bread and butter working with clients is organizing their employees to participate in crowdsourcing exercises. Recently we have been approached more to help get forecasts from external crowds, either to support research projects, or to better understand what outside experts or customers think.

By Adam Siegel on Oct 22, 2018

Before we talk, are YOU ready?

In the last month we’ve had two potential clients, after receiving proposals from us for projects, say they needed to step back and start the projects very differently than what we had originally discussed. They just weren't ready yet, they acknowledged...

By Adam Siegel on Aug 13, 2018

Thoughts on Augur, the decentralized, blockchain prediction market

I've been watching for the last few years the announcement, long delay, then recent launch of Augur, the decentralized, blockchain-based prediction market. First off, despite it taking a long time to launch, Augur finally did, and kudos to them for doing so. Building a prediction market from scratch is not easy, building a prediction market on top of immature technology is harder, and building a prediction market to be completely decentralized with smart contracts is downright scary.

By Adam Siegel on May 25, 2018

Pitch Perfect Security with Lending Club

We're pairing up with Lending Club to sponsor a monthly event where cybersecurity startups pitch their companies, and the audience gets to make predictions on our prediction market about how they're going to do in the next year in terms of fundraising, hiring, etc.

By Cultivate Labs on Mar 19, 2018

The Traffic Light Metaphor for Project Status is a Disaster

Everyone who has worked in corporate America has seen or used it. The traffic light metaphor for status. Red, there’s significant problems with a project. Yellow, there are some issues, but we’re going to make it. Green, all is good. Unfortunately, this system is a disaster for decision making.

By Cultivate Labs on Dec 05, 2017

Cultivate Forecasts - Mobile App Update for iOS and Android

Register an account for Cultivate Forecasts mobile directly in the app.

By Adam Siegel on Nov 28, 2017

Indian state Gujarat election prediction market pilot launched as precursor to 2019 general election

We're excited to be working with Idealantis, a startup based in Hyderabad, India on a prediction market pilot about the upcoming Gujarat state elections. Working with research organization People's Pulse, Idealantis has launched this test as a precursor to a country-wide effort for the general elections coming in 2019.

By Adam Siegel on Nov 13, 2017

Sales and Operational Planning: Bad Forecasts Don't Have to be a Given

Cultivate Labs CEO, Adam Siegel, recently spoke at the Institute for Business Forecasting and Planning and spent time hearing directly form attendees about the challenges they face. He shares lessons learned about the challenges sales and operations planners face in their roles, and how crowdsourced forecasting can alleviate them and improve their forecast accuracy and efficiency.

By Adam Siegel on Sep 27, 2017

Help LG Predict the Future

In partnership with LG Display, we are running a 6 month forecasting tournament about the high-end display industry.

By Ben Roesch on Sep 11, 2017

Introduction to Blockchain-based Prediction Markets Terminology

Real-money prediction markets are illegal in the U.S., but blockchain technology is giving rise to several digital currency based prediction markets based on Ethereum. Cultivate Labs defines common terminology associated with blockchain-based prediction markets.

By Ben Golden on Sep 06, 2017

New to Prediction Markets? Four Tips to Get Started.

Joining a prediction market or prediction pool can be intimidating. You may feel like you've plunged into a world of impossible questions, ongoing arguments, and have no idea where to start. You might think there's no way you could possibly add anything, or that your forecasts couldn't possible be better than anyone else's. But prediction markets don't have to be intimidating - here are four tips to get started.

By Vanessa Pineda on Jul 25, 2017

Forecasting Shouldn't Be a Gamble. 5 Things to Do to Succeed with Crowdsourced Forecasting.

In more than 10 years of working with large companies on building prediction markets and other crowdsourced forecasting mechanisms, we’ve seen one common thread with the projects that are unsuccessful. Project owners overestimate the technology, and underestimate what it takes to engage people to make the technology successful. Avoid these 5 pitfalls to improve the success of your Cultivate Forecasts prediction market.

By Cultivate Labs on Jul 19, 2017

How Your Car's Gas Gauge is Like the Future of Work

The future of work is changing, and your car's gas gauge is an indicator of how. In a future that will be increasingly measured, acquiring, understanding, and leveraging data in a timely fashion will determine who sinks and who swims.

By Cultivate Labs on Jun 23, 2017

Travis Kalanick Ousted from Uber and the Erosion of the "Boys Club" Mentality as Good for Business

The ousting of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick on Tuesday is hardly surprising, though perhaps a bit out of step for both the revered ‘boys club’ who traditionally protect their own and the Silicon Valley culture that worships individuals who can, at all costs, create 10x returns on investment. But he should’ve seen it coming a long time ago, he brought it on himself after all...

By Brian Leslie on Jun 12, 2017

Determining the Accuracy of Prediction Markets

So, you asked a prediction market question, and the outcome is now known. The question has been resolved and winnings have been disbursed to the forecasters who held winning positions. Forecasters know how well they did based upon their profits in the question, and you know who your good forecasters were too. But how accurate was your organization at answering the question itself? There are several things to consider when thinking about accuracy of the prediction market:

By Adam Siegel on May 09, 2017

Attempted Manipulation of our French Election Prediction Market: Here's What We Learned

It may be easier to manipulate a real-money market than a play-money market. In a play-money market, the dumb-money can always be defeated with smart money and a little vigilance.

By Cultivate Labs on Apr 18, 2017

Multinational Energy Company Uses Crowdsourcing to Predict Impacting Factors of Oil & Gas Prices

A multinational energy company uses Cultivate Forecasts predict economic and geopolitical events that impact oil and gas prices. We find out why they decided to incorporate internal crowdsourcing within their business and how they have been so successful at engaging employee participation.

By Adam Siegel on Feb 28, 2017

Have your team predict your KPI's in real-time so you can actually meet your KPI's

As a small bootstrapped company, we're constantly worrying about our next stage of growth. And of course start up orthodoxy says any size business should have a few key performance metrics they track to be aware of how you're doing in the things that influence revenue, profit, and the culture you want to cultivate. But as we've learned, it's not enough to just track your KPI's, you need to forecast how you're going to do on them weeks and months ahead of time.

By Adam Siegel on Feb 16, 2017

Prendid - A Dutch Election Voorspellingsmarkt (Prediction Market)

With an election coming next month in the Netherlands, Marco van Schaardenburgh has successfully launched Prendid, a “voorspellingsmarkt” (prediction market) where players are predicting the outcome of the parliamentary elections. Joining is free and available to anyone globally.

By Adam Siegel on Feb 15, 2017

Testing Crowdsourced Decision Making at Broadspectrum

Broadspectrum, whose parent organization is Ferrovial, is an Australian company that operates in the Defence, Property, Social, Infrastructure, Resources and Industrial sectors, and provide Logistics, Facilities Management, Consulting, Construction, Care, Welfare, Operations, Maintenance, Well Servicing, and Business Support services. We recently completed a pilot project in their Defence line of business...

By Vanessa Pineda on Nov 22, 2016

How Trump Stumped the Prediction Markets

Why the prediction markets signaled the wrong result for the Presidential election.

By Cultivate Labs on Jun 09, 2016

Calling all Tornado Enthusiasts

How does probability forecasting play a role in informing conclusions as to when tornadoes, and of what size and frequency, will occur? More on this and the Summer Tornado Forecasting Contest.

By Ben Golden on Jan 08, 2016

Bayesian Reasoning and Prediction Markets

I enjoyed John Horgan's piece on Bayes Theorem for Scientific American. Bayes Theorem and Bayesian reasoning are highly applicable when thinking about forecasting and prediction markets; indeed, one prediction market built a Bayes Net into its platform. In this post I'll explain what Bayesian reasoning is, why it matters to prediction markets, and give a concrete (but semi-fictitious) example of how it's applied.

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