I'm into networks and the power that they hold.  Have been for ages, with George Gilder probably kicking things off with Telecosm. I remember reading Wisdom of Crowds way back when and thinking of all the possibilities such thinking held.  So when I joined CMI I obviously thought of the potential there.  Here we had a network of some 90,000 managers, with all the knowledge and expertise that comes with that.  Whereas traditionally CMI has focused on 'selling' products and services to those members, I always believed that the true value for CMI wouldn't be in any of those products but would instead be in connecting up those 90,000 minds.

Metcalfe's law states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system, which basically means that the more people in a network the more valuable it becomes.  With 90,000 members that's a pretty powerful network, if only we could get them talking to each other and sharing their knowledge.  After all, sites like Innocentive had already led the way by offering a crowdsourced R&D department.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, be it through my own limitations or a lack of vision from CMI, this idea hasn't really taken off.  At least it hasn't taken off at CMI, for it seems that the wonderful folks at Management Innovation Exchange could well be undertaking something along those very lines.

They're launching what they're calling The Management Hackathon.  Michelle Zanini from MIX had this to say about the initiative in a conversation earlier today.

"The Management 2.0 Hackathon is an experiment in large-scale problem-solving that will tap into the collective intelligence of progressive management practitioners and technologists from around the world, using a social networking platform to collaborate"

Will it offer truely crowdsourced management to the masses in the way Innocentive has for R&D?  Only time will tell but I'll be watching this space very carefully.