Tag: collective intelligence

Ain’t No Grave: The Johnny Cash Project

via youtube.com

I’ve been reading a lot of diatribes lately about how Web 2.0 has turned the web from an instantly accessible, twenty-four hour public library (without the fines), into a theme park of trivia for the constantly connected world of Generation ‘M’. It’s an easy argument: the dumbed-down, distracted, Google-stupid generation whose Digital Rights have so produced half a billion ‘faces’ stalking each other through the eyes of Mark Zuckerberg, downloaded Hollywood Blockbusters adding to excess charges on bandwidth limits, and ‘We’ve got Talent’ Karaoke performances uploaded to YouTube saving the talent scouts endless bus journeys.

Although there is some truth in these argument, they are most often overstated. The counter arguments – the power of networks and networked publics to affect change, the tools that allow sharing, collaboration and innovation, the range of our augmented consciousnesses … etc. all sound a bit dry really. Even Wikipedia, awe-inspiring in its scope and lack of profit motive, is unlikely to make you teary-eyed.

So when I read that: ‘To date over 250,000 people from 172 countries have participated in an online project to construct Johnny Cash’s final music video’, I thought ‘another rather grey, inspiring-but-emotionless piece of crowd-sourcing’.

Then, I started watching … and got teary-eyed.

Ideas for modern living: collaborative consumption

We are surrounded by assets that have “idling capacity” – the untapped social and economic value of under-utilised spaces, skills, time, gardens, and “stuff”. With the rapid growth of network technologies, we can connect and collaborate on a scale and in ways that have never been possible before. Networks, smart phones and real-time platforms create the efficiency and social glue to trade, swap, barter, lend, gift or share “idling capacity” in ways that can enhance all aspects of our daily lives. It’s a growing culture and economy called collaborative consumption.

When you rent out your empty room on a site like crashpadder.com, not only can you make some money but also give visitors access to a local, personal experience of your city. Through “garden dating agencies”, such as landshare.net, you are connected with a gardener who might not have the space to grow their own veg and you are helping strengthen reciprocation in your community.

By using a peer-to-peer car-rental platform, such as whipcar.com, you can maximise the usage of your vehicle and create trusting neighbourhood relationships between lender and lessee. And these examples are just the tip of the iceberg of thousands of collaborative marketplaces popping up around the world.

Collaborative consumption has the power to revolutionise how we tap into idling capacity, and by doing so change the way we view and become a part of communities in unique and meaningful ways.

via guardian.co.uk

Collaborative Consumption

The recent changes in our economic landscape have only exposed and intensified a phenomenon: an explosion in sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. From enormous marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist, to emerging sectors such as peer-to-peer lending (Zopa), ‘swap trading’ (Swap.com) and car sharing (Zipcar), Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not only what we consume but how we consume.

While ranging enormously in scale and purpose, these companies and organizations are redefining how goods and services are exchanged, valued, and created — in areas as diverse as finance and travel, agriculture and technology, education and retail. Traveling among global entrepreneurs and revolutionaries, and exploring rising ventures as well as established companies adapting to these opportunities, the authors outline in bold and imaginative ways how Collaborative Consumption may very well change the world.

via collaborativeconsumption.com

DABBLERR – Personalising education

Dabblerr is an educational platform for people to involve their friends, and friends of their friends, and create enough demand so as to learn a topic of their choice from their favourite hero. It’s an effort by the next generation to request the most successful people in the world, to commit to giving few hours of their time, to train them so as to pass on their knowledge and expertise to achieve a shared prosperity that benefits all. Thus, we are not only creating a mentoree base around some of the most successful people and fan base around topics but also will be matching interesting opportunities around it. 

Dabblerr believes its time for people who want to learn a skill to demand the study environment and educator. Rather than the traditional way, where you have an educator offering a particular course to a number of people, over here in Dabbler, we have people coming to our website and creating enough demand so as to learn a topic of their choice from their favourite hero. It’s a win-win enabler which flipped the traditional educational system to make it “by demand”.. At Dabblerr, we are obsessed with the Warren G Bennis quote “There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish”. We are on a mission to create an environment where people can flourish.
via dabblerr.com

Pierre Levy on Collective Intelligence Literacy – HowardRheingold – blip.tv

via blip.tv

Definition of collective intelligence – broad phenomenon that has its origins in the animal realm. In humans such animal collective intelligence is enhanced by language and culture allowing knowledge to be passed from one generation to another. Human collective intelligence is augmented by technology – starting from language. Any convention/technology that enhances our language ability will enhance our collective intelligence. Writing systems, printing press, e-media and digital networks – augment both personal cognitive abilities (memory and perception) and collective cognitive abilities (cooperate, share, increasing the stock of collective memory). The augmentation of collective intelligence by digital networks is simply an extension of an evolutionary process that goes back to the development of language. New digital tools for memory, perception and reasoning can be used effectively and they can be misused.

The essence of the new skills in digital tools is to create a synergy between personal knowledge management and collective knowledge management.

Personal knowledge management = connecting to people and sources of knowledge through a wide variety of platforms: filter: categorise: prioritise in order to be able to share it with others who are doing the same.
It has to work for you and work for others at the same time: mutuality.
So twitter comments must enable others to categorise the reading (url) that you have tweeted.
Filter + making available = curation – so we are all increasingly behaving as librarians – the keeper of personal knowledge but because of the tools we are using that personal knowledge has the power to become collective.

The philosophy is as old as the golden mean – do unto others as you expect they do unto you. Or even Kant’s Categorical Imperative.