This blog exists because I think that social networking had a huge potential to completely change decision making as we know it. Making decisions based on the input of your network is a relatively unexplored but very interesting possibility.
I also discuss startups, game theory, economics, and other topics as the whim strikes me.
The ability to set up decision making frameworks and then garner input from multiple parties has a lot of potential. While separately we are subject to certain fallacies and decision making errors, together we might spot pitfalls that otherwise we wouldn’t see.
While there are a few sites, such as MindTools (affiliate link), dedicated to decision making techniques and classes, there has not been a lot of work to extend these tools to be used as a group in business and everyday decisions.
Imagine needing to choose what car to buy or where to move, and being able to get immediate feedback from others about whether New York is better than Seattle and how. Only instead of a haphazard discussion, it happens within a framework designed to minimize errors in human judgment.
My goal is to get us started on that path, to develop a better community understanding of how our decision making errors affect us and what we can do about them. To create new tools and extend current ones for dealing with decisions in a real life setting.
Ultimately, I want you to improve your decision making and to help me improve mine.
I’m also working to shift my career to be based more on ‘creative implementation of ideas’ instead of purely research and statistically oriented. This includes a fair bit of programming and web site development. My current project along this vein is decyder.
-zot
Just the fact that my post inspired you to write yours demonstrates to me that I am on the right path to meeting my goals.
Using social networking as a tool for decision making is an interesting idea. We tend to do that with people we know, but harnassing the Internet allows a greater sampling and access to experts for any given field.
I will be interested to see where this goes.
Hi Thomas, thanks for your comment. I’ve found writing for The Decision Strategist is really helping me to clear up my ideas.
Your encouragement is helpful, most people I talk to haven’t seemed interested.
Don’t get discouraged. It may take a while for people to get your ideas, and for you to start attracting readers.
I wrote the post 10 Tips for Increasing Comments on Your Blog that you might want to review.
Comment on 15 blogs a day, to start to get name recognition. Use Technorati to locate blogs that have similar ideas, or ideas that help solidify yours.
It appears that you recently started blogging. Commenting on other blogs will help you start to build awareness of your blog.