Crowdsourcing Market Forecasting: The Open Forecast Project

By Jim Lundy

Anyone who buys or sells technology products or services is always keen to know how the market for those goods is going to behave. It is a great business for forecasters, but as many that focus on market valuations know, it isn’t an exact science.

Open Forecast Project opens up the secret world of market sizing and forecasting

In fact, one could argue that this type of analysis is ripe for change, given the closed and often secret nature of the forecasting process. That is why Aragon Research is announcing the Open Forecast Project (OFP), a fresh new approach to sizing and valuing technology markets.

OFP uses the wisdom of crowds (people power!) to do market forecasting in a new way: a way that hasn’t been done by the established firms that dominate technology market sizing and forecasting.

To do this right meant using the right technology, and we have the right technology and the right plan. We’re using a next generation ideation platform from Spigit that will ensure not only that we accurately capture the wisdom of the crowd, but also that the entire exercise is easy, fun and rewarding not just for the participants, but for all of you out there watching as well. To see the community, you can link to it here.

Our first market forecast will cover enterprise social software. We’re taking a staged approach, and we’ve invited a set of social software experts to start the process rolling. We’ll open it up to a larger audience in a few weeks. If you are active in the social software market and would like to participate, you can nominate yourself by sending an email to: OFP@aragonresearch.com

Go ahead, drop us a line!