Today’s WSJ has two stories that scream for collaboration. The first, about Spain’s banking crisis by David Roman and Stephen Fidler and the second, by Geoffrey A. Fowler and Amir Efrati about imaginary apps that attract investors with more money than brains. These two groups desperately need to be connected to A: solve the money woes of banks around the world and B: give digital designers with too much time on their hands something productive to do.
Here’s how it could work:
Programmers come up with a new online banking/gaming system, let’s call it Bank Bunco. Individuals log in and select their banking partner each Monday before 10A.M. GMT from the list of worldwide banks with distressed assets. There are plenty from which to choose.
Once the partnerships are created, no one exits the game until there is a winner or the following Monday, whichever comes first. Rolls are executed simultaneously each day at high noon GMT. (In case someone on the International Space Station has enough free time to participate in a global effort to save the banks.
Each bank’s avatar rolls three dice and the points are tallied. Individuals then post comments to “hype” their bank. Each “hype” costs one monetary unit. Monetary units, Euro, Franc, Pound, Dollar, Rupee, etc. are credited to banks in their respective country. Banks are ranked lowest to highest based on the number of monetary units generated by “hypes” posted by the closing bell at 9P.M. GMT.
If a bank rolls a Bunco, players investors receive a text with a hyper link to a page where they can post “hyper hype” to increase the number of monetary units for their bank. Of course there are ads in the sidebar for products and services everyone needs, and if someone clicks the super secret bonus ad, their bank receives cyber credits increasing the number of “hypes” by a factor of 12. It could be a factor of ten, but the metric system really screws up people in the U.S. Plus twelve is the number needed for Bunco.
Banks with monetary units exceeding 100 billion on the last day of the month are allowed to stay in the game business. All others are deleted DEBUNKED and sent to the sub list. There’s really no thinking or strategy involved. Should we give it a go? It might be fun!
Honie Briggs 