FEI IT, Seattle
March 4, 2010
Gaming the Forecast
Leveraging Collective Intelligence for
Real-Time, Accurate Forecasts
Mat Fogarty, CEO
Crowdcast
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Speaker Background
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London School of Economics, Management Science
Unilever, Finance Manager, CIMA
UC Berkeley, MBA
Electronic Arts, Director of FP&A
Founded Crowdcast in 2007
San Francisco, Venture backed
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Crowd Forecast = Crowdcast
• Forecasts are often subject to
bias, stickiness and gaming
• Crowdcast leverages wisdom of
employee and partner crowd
• Based on a prediction market
• Produces unbiased, real time
forecasts of key metrics
• Valuable for new products, key
projects, and external metrics
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Costs of Poor Forecasts
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
What is a Prediction Market?
• Based on stock market or
betting market
• Aggregates knowledge of
diverse group
• Players weight forecasts
• Rewarded for early, accurate
predictions
• Anonymous and meritocratic
• Accurate players given more
weight over time
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Actionable Intelligence
Intelligence
Insight
Crowdcast Platform
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Action
Actionable Intelligence
Intelligence
Insight
Crowdcast Platform
When will new
product ship?
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Action
Actionable Intelligence
Intelligence
Insight
Crowdcast Platform
When will new
product ship?
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
50% chance
late
“Supplier
problems”
Action
Actionable Intelligence
Intelligence
Insight
Action
Crowdcast Platform
When will new
product ship?
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
50% chance
late
“Supplier
problems”
Change
Supplier
Actionable Intelligence
Intelligence
Insight
Action
Crowdcast Platform
When will new
product ship?
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
10% chance
late
“New
supplier
rocks”
Change
Supplier
Examples of Forecasts
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When will the product launch?
What will be the product’s quality score?
Sales units in first 90 days?
Sales at $39 vs Sales at $49?
Project
Management
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When will the next milestone be complete?
How much will the project cost?
Will the project achieve its stated goal?
Industry
Intelligence
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Will a regulation pass?
What will our market share be?
Will our competitor launch a competing product?
New
Products
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Use cases
• 400 employees forecasting success of game
projects, 32% more accurate than official
• Panel of scientists and doctors predicting
FDA decisions & sales, more accurate 86%
of time
• Diverse team forecasting tech trends,
demand, competitor actions and regulatory
changes
• Employees and customer community
forecasting success of new products
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
SCREENSHOTS
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Player – Select Question
• Employee scans available
forecasts and chooses one
where he has special
knowledge
• When will the Beta of the
Tablet Computer launch?
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Player – Enter Bet
• Employee chooses a
range of likely
outcomes
• Weights forecasts with
virtual money
• If correct, the bet will
payoff
• All input is anonymous
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Player – Add Comments
• Why does the employee
think this?
• What is the underlying
reason and assumptions?
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Player – Leaderboard
• Leaderboard shows how
accurate the players are, also
which department is more
accurate
• Competition, bonuses and other
incentives encourage
participation and accuracy
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Manager – Forecast Analytics
• Early warning of issues
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
• How does the Crowdcast
compare to the target?
Manager – Forecast Analytics
• Understand most likely
outcome
• Spread indicates range of
outcomes for analysis of risk
• Which teams are more
optimistic / pessimistic
about the metric
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
• How has the forecast
changed through time
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Complete solution
Software
© Crowdcast, Inc. 2010
Services
• Secure hosing
• Market design
• Training, deployment
• User engagement strategy
• Custom report and analytics