Collective Intelligence and Collaboration
While thinking about collective intelligence I realize that it is something that I contribute to, and pull from, already in my daily life. The way I use it, usually, is more personal and less via the web. I do use Wikipedia and other online sources with user content and information, but, in most cases when I want to know how to do something or know about something I ask someone in my network of friends.
For example, I try to be a pretty well rounded individual, be a jack-of-all-trades of sorts. I enjoy having many different types of skills and experience in a lot of different areas. While learning about the things I am interested in I make friends in that specific field which I can then call on for information when I am unsure about something. It is like Mr. Batchelder was talking about, tapping into someone else’s knowledge bank, without having to store the knowledge yourself. Since I enjoy doing things like: mechanic work, home improvement, working with computers, and gardening, I have built relationships with people that have experience in those fields. When I run into problems working on my car I call my friend Terry who was a mechanic for several years and now is a clinical tech at Children’s Hospital. When I have trouble with a home improvement project I call my brother Danny who has owned and run a contracting company since 2000 and is now studying forensic engineering at UT Austin. Even though I am pretty well versed in computer hardware and software, if I run into a problem on the software side of things I call my old IT mentor from two jobs ago, Renee, who guides me through any problems I am having. My friend Kenton is an avid gardener, as well as the lead singer of the band I manage, so I go to him with gardening questions and suggestions. And, God forbid, if I injure myself doing any one of those things I can always call Terry, or my step brother Walter who is a paramedic in the Travis County EMS.
Building a network of the same type of acquaintances, and relationships, in the web design field will be the first step to having access to all of the information you need. These can be online contacts as well, but I much prefer the personal touch, it gives you someone to hold accountable if their advice turns out to be incorrect. In researching this subject I came across excerpts of a book by James Surowiecki that really caught my attention, I have ordered the book to be able to read the whole thing but you can read a blurb and an excerpt of The Wisdom of Crowds here. The book seems to touch on the whole subject of group intelligence, he uses the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” as an example of group intelligence, the percentage of “ask the audience” vs. “phone a friend” coming up with the right answer. I hope the whole book is as interesting as the excerpt and blurb make it seem.
Knowledge workers and managing knowledge is another article that I somehow navigated to while researching collective intelligence. While it does not directly explain collective intelligence, it talks about knowledge workers which I feel is something directly related to collective intelligence. The term refers to people hired on at a company based solely on the knowledge they posses, which is a form of collective intelligence. It also highlights how knowledge workers must continue to expand and adapt their intelligence (seems to me like P.L.E.’s and the proper use of collective intelligence) to stay ahead in their field, and not be caught up in the next wave of corporate downsizing. Managing, and sharing, the knowledge you posses is one of the most important parts of collective intelligence.
Collective intelligence may very well be the most important tool a web designer, or other knowledge worker, can possess to be successful in the job market today. Keeping up with sources of knowledge pertaining to our careers keep us at the forefront of our industry and make us indispensable to employers.
usernumber said,
April 21, 2008 at 10:50 pm
You are very good with words…
I like how you related the subject to your daily life…
Um… your links didn’t do anything for me… they took me to some refinance page?
wayne said,
April 22, 2008 at 9:08 am
Jonathan,
I also had problems with the links. Suggestion, instead of “here” use the name of the article as this helps understand what the link is. Correct link for Wisdom of Crowds is:
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385721707.
Your reflective way of relating the concept of collective intelligence to your connections in life and how you expand your “knowledge” through others is an excellent example of the concept. The knowledge worker – PLE connection is also interesting as I hope you will find many such connections and integrative concepts in what is occuring in the “information age”.
As you state, collective intelligence is not new, and it has many different domains that it relates to, but social networking and social learning are becoming a new type of integrative process that we can explore and see how it fits our unique way of being in the world.
jdbosley said,
April 22, 2008 at 11:32 am
Sorry about the issue with the links everyone, I have fixed them now. The address given to me by Mr. Batchelder was not the one I wanted people to navigate to, so check out the fixed links.
jdbosley said,
April 22, 2008 at 11:58 am
You are right Mr. Batchelder, all of the different ideas and concepts you have asked us to research over the last few weeks are starting to merge together into one broad concept now. The bigger picture of what we are going to be doing over the next few years s starting to take shape to me.
Roger W. Farnsworth said,
April 22, 2008 at 3:08 pm
You might be interested in the work that Tom Malone and Rob Laubacher are doing at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT. http://cci.mit.edu/
In the interest of disclosure, we’re sponsors, but some of the research that is underway there is quite cutting edge.
mwcain81 said,
April 22, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I do also like to consider myself a jack of all trades…. ad I think that this concept of collective intelligence will allow me to continue to learn things from a wide variety of sources. I have before sat for hours watching DIY videos on youtube….. although that may be a bit of a shallow use of the technology.
nicosilva said,
April 23, 2008 at 4:19 pm
mwcain81 (sorry, forgot your real name), that’s not a shallow use of Youtube. Now, videos of idiotic kids running into walls or cats caterwauling, those are shallow uses of Youtube. You’re learning something useful while watching those, and that’s something to say.
I know what you mean about a circle of friends. While none of my friends are normal (what?), I can still go to them if I want to know something about their interests. If I wanted to know about neo-pagan religions, I go to my friend David, who has helped with the activities at Stonehenge during the spring equinox. If I want to know anything Linux, and want comments about balding to be peppered throughout the discussion (he seems to think the two go together), I go to my friend Tom. We all have our networks, these applications just help us keep in touch with others we would not have gotten in touch with otherwise.
I’ve noticed people write the best when they talk about themselves. Maybe we should all try that, taking specific samples from our own lives so we can spice up our entries.
jlphannah said,
April 23, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I can relate more to the personal networking and I agree with you that it is easier to hold those personal contacts accountable for the information that they provide. I have also managed to find some interesting contacts over the Internet just through casual chatting. I really am enjoying discovering the more indepth attributes of the web there is definitely much more to being an Interactive Designer than I initially realized.
I liked also the book reference (The Wisdom of Crowds), although advances in technologies both on and off the web are great I still like to hold a book in my hands and read.