Potential of idea futures markets in organizational decision-making for educational technology

The concepts and methods used in commodity and financial futures markets are adapted to structure "idea" futures markets. Instead of trading on future prices for commodities or financial instruments, an idea futures market trades on the likelihood of realization of a specific, identifiable, operational proposition at some future point in time - an idea. Shares in an idea future are bought and sold using standard market methods. The price of a future reflects the aggregated information over all traders about the probability associated with the proposition. Prices rise or fall based upon changes in information perceived by market participants. Idea futures markets have strong applicability to strategic, tactical, and logistics decisions about the development, diffusion, and implementation of educational technology products.