Collective intelligence

Draft

Definition

Collective intelligence is not a very precise concept. I may refer to

• any sort of collaborative actities e.g. CSCW, Knowledge management, collaborative learning, social computing to name just a few.
• or some more precise kind of collaborative or social way to organize activities and its outcomes.

• We define collective intelligence (to distinish it from other forms) as natural or constructed designs where individuals share things with others and that lead to a better performance of the group and its individuals.

Other definitions

• “Collective intelligence, as characterized by Tom Atlee, Douglas Engelbart, Cliff Joslyn, Francis Heylighen, Ron Dembo, and other theorists, is a working form of intelligence which overcomes "groupthink" and individual cognitive bias in order to allow a collective to cooperate on one process\u2014while maintaining reliable intellectual performance. In this context, it refers to robust consensus decision making, and may properly be considered a subfield of sociology.” (Wikipedia:Collective intelligence, 16:44, 15 September 2006 (MEST))

Examples of collective intelligence

• Many activities that we categorize under social computing making use of social software, e.g. links and artifacts sharing or social shopping
• Knowledge management
• Project-oriented learning design where students mostly work individually or in small teams, but do have to participate in "sharing activities"
• [Wikipedia]-like Wikis

Links

• Collective Intelligence. A consulting group (?). Many good links including a blog with news.

• [http://mikro.org/Events/OS/wos2/Levy-pp/liensIC.html

Links on the practice and theory of collective intelligence], by Pierre Lévy. This is a long list with interesting pointers to articles, thinkers and examples.

References

• Olivier Zara, Managing Collective Intelligence, Toward a New Corporate Governance, PDF

• Lévi, Pierre, L'intelligence collective et ses objets, HTML

Levy, Pierre and Robert Bononno (1997), Collective Intelligence, Plenum Publishing Corporation, ISBN 0306456354