My high-level, naive view of commodity markets is ‘Commodity markets are markets where raw or primary products are exchanged’.

Once exchanged, a series of activities takes whereby those commodities change hands once, or a number of times, in raw or processed form in order to reach the end user/consumer.

Every bottle of juice or packet of bacon, started as a raw commodity that was transformed into  consumable product.

Similarly, every product & process began in raw form…an idea.

I don’t want to waffle on about this; you know where I’m headed. I have a head full of ideas on ways ideas can be traded for commercial benefit in a high volume environment, but more on that later.

I think it was Seth Godin (Unleashing the Idea Virus) who said the currency of the future is ideas and I think we need to start thinking about how we can harness what essentially is a raw material with unlimited scope and potential in terms of what it can deliver through the processing phases.

Back to trading ideas as commodities: next step for me is to create a wireframe mock-up of a commodity trading platform under these umbrella requirements:

  • it is easy to put forward ideas
  • there is a checkin/verification process (uspto integration???)
  • a clear and documented trail to establish and maintain ownership
  • people submitting ideas are rewarded
  • people buying ideas have ample protection
  • it is a community tool
  • no-one gets preferential treatment in terms of opportunity to present ideas

Now, I can design and develop proof of concept and a high level business requirements document, but I will need ample funding for this one…