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December 08, 2006
IT#9: The power of social-networking and the rise of Collective Intelligence -brennels
After spending numerous weeks researching social networking sites, I have come to one conclusion: The web, as we once knew it, is crumbling. Long gone are the days where a few fairly intelligent (if we were lucky) people posted up their thoughts/insights and everyone else read and met around the water cooler on Monday morning to engage in discussions. And do you know why? It dawned upon some people that there were thousands of places around the country where these conversations were taking place, and there must be to not only a way to aggregate it, but to make it much more efficient. The internet has allowed for communication barriers to be shattered in such a way that once someone posts information there is almost immediate feedback, whether in the form of comments, blogs, trackback, or popularity-sites like del.icio.us.
Social networking sites are the pioneers of this movement, allowing users to create profiles on the web, and then explore…building their page with pictures, videos, music, blogs, news links, etc. They can also post their thoughts on others’ pages, in the form of comments: (written, audio, and now video). This is akin to millions of people sitting in a room exchanging information; sometimes it is useless information, other times it may be insightful. This is powerful. There must be some way for society to benefit from everyone’s interaction, for as the saying goes 'two heads are better than one.' Well at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the saying goes 'we>me.'
MIT has created a Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI) which aims at understanding how new communication technologies on the internet (social-networks, Google, Wikipedia, etc.) are influencing the idea of a collective intelligence, and how we can use this knowledge to our advantage. The basic research question is How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before? This undertaking is admittedly not a light one, but MIT is up to the challenge. One of the first ways they will tackle this issue is by creating a book unlike any that has ever been made before, called We are smarter than me.
Who will be the author of this book? You will. And I’ll help as well. Add 675,000 invitees from Wharton, 400,000 from Sloan, and this thing will get huge. What will this book be about? We will figure out ways in which to adapt traditional business functions to the rapid changes in technology and communication.
Are there critics of the 'collective intelligence' idea? Sure there are. People say it will result in chaos, there will be no clear direction, disagreements will create discrepancies, the knowledge will be useless, etc. In response I would offer one word 'Wikipedia'. Wikipedia has revolutionized the way information is shared, and the CCI has recognized this and decided to run with it. Will 'We are smarter than me' revolutionize traditional business as we know it? Maybe yes, maybe no. But will we all benefit from embarking on a mission to see how revolutionary the internet’s communication tools can be in enhancing our knowledge? You better believe it.
Posted by brennels at December 8, 2006 10:01 PM