Last night I while looking through twitter for some SXSW tweets I came across
an interesting game that was being played by folks running up to the event. After
some playing around I with it I am now completely addicted and I think as someone
who has gone to GeekRetreat before, that it is a brilliant format for the next event.

The idea simple, get programmers and business folks together and let them create
a startup over the course of two days from scratch. This of course was something
that was being attempted this year at GeekRetreat to a degree. The important difference
with the game called "StartUpBus" being played at SXSW is of couse the community
participation.

Let me explain, the organizers create milestones that a startup have to reach over the
course of two days... everything from pitching the idea to branding to coding the actual
application. As these milestones are reached the team's startup's share values increase.
The community aspect to the game is that anyone can register from anywhere and start
buying shares in various startups and play in a mock stock market environment while
they monitor closely their teams progress.

All of this sounds complicated and even potentially boring, but having played it for just
a few hours I can see that it has huge potential and maybe we can see it happen at
GeekRetreat next year.

Register and see what I mean here.