Is the EU spending big bucks for the obvious from QualiPSo?
It's a think tank.
Governments, academic institutions, and corporations in Europe, Asia and Brazil have all put in big bucks in order to share insights on how to foster the growth of open source.
Unfortunately, as Roberto Galoppini pointed out to me yesterday, the insights aren't that deep. They don't seem to be much more than what you would get from an hour's worth of Googling.
And for this they're paying $1 million per study?
Well, yes. And it's well worth the money.
The purpose of a think tank putting a high price on its work is not to pay the costs of creating it. It's to concentrate the attention of the people receiving it. In this case, the leaders have convinced themselves the insights of QualiPSo will be true and honest. They have high buy-in and they will take what QualiPSo says seriously.
The fact that it's obvious, that you or I or Roberto could say it better in five minutes, doesn't enter into it. The fact is they won't listen to us. They will listen to QualiPSo. They will follow the think tank's recommendations because they paid big bucks for it, and because they put their institutions' names behind it.
At $1 million per study, it's cheap. I would have put at least another zero on it. And released it with enormous fanfare, with smoke machines and rockets, over a very fine dinner with the very finest wines.
Make it really unforgettable and no way they'll forget it.