Category: Collaboration

Collective Intelligence Platform Properties

http://news.noahraford.com/?p=695
large copied excerpts :

The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence recently published an important overview of the theory and mechanisms behind successful crowdsourcing efforts. Their report, called “Harnessing Crowds: Mapping the Genome of Collective Intelligence“, can be found here.

( http://cci.mit.edu/publications/CCIwp2009-01.pdf )

…

According to the Center for Collective Intelligence, a good collective intelligence platform (CI) must address the following themes:
Goals, referring to the desired outcome;
Incentives, referring to the motivational factors;
Structure/process, referring to the business model and organizational structure to complete the task; and
Staffing, referring to the people required to support the business model and sustainability of CI within the organization.
These four themes then translate into the following four questions:
What is to be accomplished?
Why should anyone help out?
How are they meant to contribute?
Who will perform the necessary work?
Figure 1, below, illustrates how these four themes and questions interact to form the building blocks of any collective intelligence system.

Figure 1, the basic building blocks of a CI system
Developing a detailed decision tree
This approach then asks a series of sequential, logical questions, the answers of which form specific guidelines for all CI systems:
Can activities be divided into pieces? Are necessary resources widely distributed or in unknown locations?
Are there adequate incentives to participate?
What kind of activity needs to be done?
Can the activity be divided into small, independent pieces?
Are only a few good (best) solutions needed?
Does the entire group need to abide by the same decision?
Are money or resources required to exchange hands or motivate decision?
The answer to these questions comes in the form of specific “genetic” building blocks, such as the “Create” gene, the “Crowd” gene, or the “Decide” gene. The paper concludes with a detailed table listing these genes and how they interact with the questions above.
In my own work developing online scenario planning systems, I have found it useful to translate these questions into a flowchart that can be used to help navigate this process. This chart is presented in Figure 2, below, which presents each of these questions and possible answers in the form of a decision tree (full PDF by clicking on the image or downloading here http://www.noahraford.com/files/CI_flowchart_raford.pdf ).

Critical Networks

did you come across materials laying out a synthesis of very specific characteristics and requirements
around what I am tempted to call “critical networks” ?

Perhaps there is some other name for this ?

I think of “critical network” as distinctive from, yet potentially including , the concept of “critical mass”.

In the way I envision it,
“Critical Network” where the required “critical” properties for an operational or emergent networked system may not merely be a mass of users,
but specific properties ( such as measurable forms of reciprocity, physical location, resources, knowledge and skills, or other variables ) related to the constituents and context for specific intentional “process economies” to be enabled.

Including the mode of access to resources required for specific kinds of emergence.

I want to understand ( and have access to examples of ) various characteristics required to facilitate and multiply “local process economies” for viable and convivial living systems

http://p2pfoundation.net/Process_Economy

as to document step by step strategy proposals,

not merely in a “enclosed” / monetized approach,

but rather within a larger wealth acknowledgment system
http://p2pfoundation.net/Wealth_Acknowledgment_Systems

towards communal sharing in intentional economic networks.

I put an emphasis on understanding “starting points” for ( at first small scale )
“critical networks”.

I can find inspiration in homebrew revolutions ( and examples such as e-farm , open manufacturing, … ),
but also recommendations related to the set up of “transition towns”
( http://www.transitionnetwork.org/resources/transition-primer )

I can also find inspiration in ( reading excerpts online )
of books such as

http://www.integralcity.com/

and the p2p urbanism and p2pf blog , wiki and lists.

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What I wish, is to define requirements more accurately,
offering post-industrial alternatives to sometimes publicly supported “gentrification urban development models” ( which I observe here in Brussels too ),
that seem to be aligned or inspired by Richard Florida’s Creative Class approach of development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class

I am also particularly interested in converging such understanding into building up “games” ,
and use such games as a form of synthesis practice to empower “critical networks”
for a intentional information and communication framework,
with incentives and related metrics, empowering collective intelligence and collaborative action.

I am aware such question may open up a large conceptual map, including the ones already layed out by you and p2pf peers.

I am interested in condensing it, into specifics, specific step by step examples.
e-farm may offer an example.

I want to know where and how to focus/aggregate attention as first steps,
and bring it into “real social” ( http://p2pfoundation.net/Real_Social )
“real games”.

For the moment, I consider “Housing Cooperatives” and “Group Purchasing Organizations” as starting points in post-industrial frameworks, as some first aggregator layers, on which to build other relational dynamics around food and housing.

Food production, food logistics, but also food as aggregator, such as http://sharewiki.org/en/Semantic_Kitchen ,
and then alternative currencies and wealth acknowledgment systems supporting more and more complex transaction potentials.

I also like the approach of learning spaces as aggregators for bringing together “Critical Network” requirements and development practices, such as the “University” project promoted by Dougald :
http://dougald.posterous.com/day-27-help-me-start-a-university

Perhaps some of you read ( I did not ) the “integral city” book.

Is there a comprehensive list of requirements set out ?

Also , what are the capital requirements for such kind of “ventures”,
as to converge or purchase infrastructure requirements to enable the functioning of a critical network for a p2p resilient and convivial civilization of collaborative individualists?

In addition to development practices,
I wish to outline all of these requirement into modules,
that help define the costs on a context based approach for
“business plans”, packaged and sold as “use value insurance” …