Patrick J. Howie has spent two decades studying the social process of innovation as an economist, head of product development for a venture capital–backed start-up, and creator of the social prediction website ABetterGuess.com. His work has been cited and published in numerous publications, including Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal. Howie holds a patent for the Unique Method and System of Analyzing the Effectiveness of Marketing Strategies.
Howie, a leading researcher in the field of product development and marketing effectiveness, says that we need to take the “expert” out of “expertise” and find an objective measure of an individual’s ability to predict the next revolution. Howie argues that the best predictions come from combining the power of two prediction trends, crowd wisdom and the expert opinion, to identify the voice of the “leading edge.” The practical model of this theory developed by Howie is www.ABetterGuess.com, a social prediction website based on an algorithm he developed. ABetterGuess.com calculates the probability that a specific individual can accurately predict a sequence of future events by answering a few questions. Transforming our understanding and value of knowledge can change multiple facets of industry, academia, and our day-to-day lives.
Howie’s most recent venture is his book THE EVOLUTION OF REVOLUTIONS:: How We Create, Shape, and React to Change (Prometheus Books, February 22, 2011) where he uses the theory of relativity, the world wide web, and the Democratic Revolution as three main examples of revolutions to describe this evolution.
