Technology Procurement for celebrities

When the deep pockets consider what humanity needs for the future they come up with the idea to procure a space-ship! Then they launch a procedure, not unlike the Technology Procurement (TP), to tickle supplier competition for a huge price-sum. It is called X-prize. It has a high component of celebrities and stresses publicity as a driving force, at least to find the donors.

Now they have come up with a more down to earth project (no pun intended) for transportation. The idea is basically the same. A specification of what should be produced (just as TP), a huge reward (a little bit like TP) and a business-plan is required (where TP provided real customers).

There are quite few evaluations of TPs. And one lesson is that there are more than one way to succeed, but still a few "Do nots".

The biggest mistake in technology procurements, that really wants to change the market, is to anticipate customers instead of organising them. The second biggest mistake is to think that a huge reward is needed. The third mistake is to make specifications according to technology performance only and not ask the customers what they want. X-prize seems to make most of these. It may work for space-ships but hardly for (normal) consumer-goods.

They will no doubt find a winner but will they change the market? Or just have a great party?