Low hanging fruits & Monetising Problems
By Bala Pillai, Sydney

What is the criteria?

Given that the harder a problem, the greater the reward, the lesser the
competition, the more uncertain resourcing for it is AND

The easier a problem, the lesser the reward, the greater the competition and
the more certain resourcing is

Low hanging fruits would lie in the sweetspot between "too hard a problem" and "too easy a problem". Not too hard such that the resourcing is so uncertain.
Not too easy such that the rewards make it so unworthwhile.

By resourcing I mean human resourcing. Why? Because astute humans organise all other resources, money included.

Monetising Problems

How do you monetise problems?

First of all realise that default problems are opportunities. And default
opportunities are monetisable.

And be prepared to imagine that some of the most surprising problems are monetisable. For example, how do you monetise the problem of unhappiness? Answer: Bottle happiness -- that is basically what Coca-Cola has done. It has bottled glee.

How do you monetise value? Attach a currency value to it. And osmosis the value.

How do you monetise views? Create exchanges. That's what stock exchanges and foreign exchange dealers do. You sell your view on where a stock or currency's price is headed.

Can we monetise our views on which script-director-actor combination will do well and which we think won't? You bet -- create an exchange for the buying and selling of these views.

What blurs whether money can be made from doing this?

1. Absence of imagination and habitual perception that the solution will be executed weakly.

2. Some people make the world happen. More watch the world happen. Most wonder what happened. The "empty vessels makes the most noise" in the latter two groups.

How do you overcome that? Have it executed by industry experts with track record -- you've done enough by coming to this stage (i.e. reading this that no one seems to know, perceiving the problem, having the inner strength to be prepared to imagine there is a solution to it, thinking of the solution, assessing its sweetspotness and articulating the solution enough to organise resourcing (human + financial) for it -- all of which are mostly taken for granted by many around you).

Copyright Bala Pillai, 2002. Freely distributable with credit.

cheers../bala
Bala Pillai bala@apic.net
Autopoietic Social Networks/ Mind Colonies (since 1995)
Sydney, Australia
http://www.ryze.com/go/bala
Yahoo IM: bala2pillai
+61 2 9807 8589