Collective Intelligence Commons
Tom wrote:
I now think we can have our Commons in the blog space (using the blog function) in a way that actually serves the larger theme and
intention of the whole first month -- getting to know the field through each other.
I withhold opinion until I can see how individual blog entries can be associated with tags and categories, given that there were some misunderstandings with Brandon about that issue. Currently, when you go to http://cic.evolutionarynexus.org/node/add/blog , you will see no sign for the capacity to associate the new entry with a tag or category.
Assuming that entries indeed can be tagged and categorized, I think an inter-blogged Commons will be an excellent manifestation what I call a "sweet spot of innovation," where social, technical, learning, and business innovations meet one another, generating a vortex of surprising breakthroughs.
I guess, you see how the CI Commons can become a sweet spot of social, technical, and learning innovations, but wonder what I mean by "business innovations" in the context of the CI community. That's how it appears to me, now:
The CI Commons hosted by the Convergence community can and will generate significant value to not only for its members but for society, as well. If so, it can also discover new, value-creation models supported by a positive feedback loop between value to society and value to members.
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Susan's comment below and Tom's reply to it were just too important to let them get buried under the avalanche of our email messages.
So I’ve put on my janitor hat for virtual housekeeping :-) and re-posted them here, along with my thoughts posted in a new reply.
"I do agree we need a Commons space, but not the same thing as the communal blog which is a mosaic of everyone's individual blogs,if I understand it correctly."
Tom replied:
I think there are probably better "community spaces" that people have
created online, but I'm not sure we have a significantly better
alternative WITHIN DRUPAL. The only alternative I can think of for a
community space within Drupal is a Group with discussion topics
beneath it. In my gut, it feels like the need to box community
conversations into topic spaces undermines the flowing,
relationship-based, free-expression "community feel" we'd like to see
in the CIC Commons. In a Group, for example, we'd have to have a
special place for "appreciations". What if someone has something
more nuanced than an appreciation to say? In a Blog space, they can
say whatever they want to say -- and it shows up in the collective
space.
My own concerns about the communal blogspace being a balkanized
mozaic evaporated when I actually looked at the collective blogspace
and imagined what people would write that would be in that space, and
their faces there, and it felt HUMAN. And the nonlinearity wasn't so
much fragmentation as rich diversity. The ability to pursue threads
of emergent topic is preserved by the ability to respond to what
someone says, both from within and from outside their blog posting.
But the Topic organization is not dominant: the PEOPLE organization
is dominant. Imagine a "democracy wall"* in a public place where
everyone can put up what they are thinking and feeling and eveyrone
else can read it and respond to it.
On top of that -- and I admit this is my primary consideration --
once you open up one Group, the pressure will be immense to open up
others. I am VERY concerned (and I know this feeling is not
necessarily shared by others) that people will too easily bolt to the
"head stuff" of the intellectual Groups before they've connected in
the more nonlinear fashion we are trying to facilitate here. I think
it will undermine the project to have them move prematurely into the
Group space. So, for me, the establishment of a clear boundary is
essential. We aren't starting from a clean slate. We're starting
with the cultural cards stacked against us. What we are doing is
UNUSUAL and needs infrastructure supports for it to succeed.
In short, I don't see that the value added by switching the Commons
from Blogspace to Groupspace comes anywhere near the negative
trade-offs involved. And, when we open up the whole site in February
(with Groups and collaborative Books both involved), we can bring a
Groupspace dimension into the Commons, since we need no longer be
concerned about a stampede into headspace; headspace will be the norm
(although by then couched in relationship space).
- tom
One of the important things I learned from Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz in the early 80’s is their meaning of the word “groupware” that they’ve coined as “intentional group processes followed by software.” To me it means that deep attention to needs, purpose, and anticipated interactions of the Commons has to come before defining what software modules we should choose to support it. If not, we risk to limit them by the premature selection of the software, which is still the case in 95% of vircomm design projects.
Wikipedia sez about Commons:
“any sets of resources that a community recognizes as being accessible to any member of that community. The nature of commons is different in different communities... Commons are a subset of public goods.”
That made me think the whole site is our Commons and suggest to change its name from CI Convergence to CI Commons. The first served us well in the first, gathering phase and it maybe useful for a little longer but it is an inward-looking name, whereas CI Commons includes both the “communal ownership” and “service to the public” meanings.
What do y'all think?
Wikipedia:
“there must be a system of management. Such models include the Hobbesian Leviathan model, where there is a central authority that monitors the behaviour of the users and can sanction abusers. There are also many other models, some of which can require no maintenance—for instance, if it is known that the collective consists mostly of contingent cooperators, then once responsible behaviour has been established, it will most likely continue without management. Another model is reputation management.”
We shouldn’t launch the Commons in any form without, at least, a very minimalist “member and user covenant” of our individual and collective responsibilities, IMHO. Nancy W. has a collection of such agreements and wisdom about developing one.
I don't object to to that name, nor am I drawn to it at this point. I feel Commons is a bit presumptuous at this point, small as we are. We ARE a convergence; there is a coming-together going on here. It feels like declaring or having a Commons for the field (as opposed to a Commons for the site) belongs at a later stage of development. Thus it DOES seem real to me -- if the site is successful over the next 2 months -- to review the effort in March (as we said we'd do in the invitation) and, after possible upgrades and outreach efforts, to rename it the CI Commons, at which point it will BE that, in practice. However, this story I'm telling myself about all this should not stop the group from calling it the CI Commons if that fits with the story most of the rest of the group is telling themselves! (it is, after all, all Story :) )
Tom, U R right on the timing... thanks for catching it.
I agree with Tom here. Our intention first and foremost has been, as far as I understand, to enable a convergence of the field of collective intelligence. In my opinion, a commons doesn't necessarily carry the intention of convergence. I also agree with Tom that a CI Commons within the context we are working in here is likely a later stage.