A milestone in the evolution of the CI field
A milestone in the evolution of the CI field occurred on October 13, 2006, when MIT launched its Center for Collective Intelligence, the first major academic center dedicated to our growing disciipline.
The Center's director, Thomas Malone, said, “At CCI, our 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?” (Seeing Tom Malone at the head of CCI is particularly inspiring, given his values expressed in Otto Scharmer's interview with him, from which he is coming to CI work.)
CCI's research agenda spells out as follows:
We believe that many companies and other groups will be creating new forms of collective intelligence in the coming years. We also believe that research universities like MIT can provide important contributions to this endeavor by:(a) collecting and distilling the results of experience from the real-world "experiments" many people will be trying
(b) experimenting with innovative new techniques to advance the state-of-the-art
(c) conducting rigorous scientific research to find the reliable patterns underlying subjective anecdotes and accidental successes or failures, and
(d) developing theoretical frameworks to help understand all these things
That's great news to the whole field of CI because MIT entering it, will no doubt legitimize it as worth of academic study and research, as well as action-research in business and other organizations!
One of their first project is a collaboratively written book on "We Are Smarter Than Me," which will be published in hardcover by Pearson Publishing, and sold in bookstores. The process will include forums and the use of a book wiki and royalties will go to charities. I joined that initiative and am curious of emergent possibilities for collaboration between it and the Source Documents for Collective Intelligence Convergence.
Here's the table of contents of "We Are Smarter Than Me":
Part I: Why Community Makes a Difference To You
Narrator's Introduction - In Progress
Chapter 1: We Can Do It - In Progress
Part II: Case Studies: Who Is Using Communties Successfully?
Chapter 2: We Can Research It - In Progress
Chapter 3: We Can Make It - In Progress
Chapter 4: We Can Market It - In Progress
Chapter 5: We Can Put A Price On It - Not Started
Chapter 6: We Can Sell It - Not Started
Chapter 7: We Can Distribute It - Not Started
Chapter 8: We Can Service Ourselves - In Progress
Chapter 9: We Can Finance It - In Progress
Part III: Tools and Techniques for Your Community Success
Chapter 10: We Can Manage Ourselves - In Progress
Chapter 11: We Can Train Ourselves - In Progress
Chapter 12: We Can Govern Ourselves - In Progress
Chapter 13: We Can Develop The Technologies - Not Started
Part IV. Additional Chapters on Community You Would Like To See
Suggested chapters: We can change the plan
Miscellany: We have more to say (but don't know how it fits)