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BBC - dot.life: The politics of crowdsourcing
"The Conservatives have obtained another leaked document, a government report on public sector IT.
Laptop computerThis leak isn't likely to generate lurid headlines, as the report on transforming government by using "interactive (web 2.0) tools and processes, cloud computing technology and service-oriented architecture (SOA)" isn't exactly dynamite.
Still, the Conservatives have come up with quite a clever idea - they've put the document online and are inviting the public to comment on every part of it as they frame the party's response.
They've built a website called Make IT Better, and say their aim is " to throw open the process and allow people to contribute their ideas on how policy should be designed".
They're calling this "crowdsourcing" policy - but how far is it likely to go and will it prove a major feature of political engagement from now on?
The Conservatives say they've already used this idea back in 2007 to enlist the public's help in shaping their manifesto, with a site called Stand Up, Speak Up. "
An Experiment in the "Creativity of Crowds"
"Consider the Open Source model for software, where long-distance collaboration produces innovative, effective, robust, and freely-available software and systems.
Could a variant of this model be applied to problems in healthcare, community safety, disaster response, education, energy sustainability, environmental protection, and other contemporary issues?
A group led by Ben Shneiderman of the University of Maryland is proposing to explore this. They've written a White Paper on a "National Initiative for Social Participation". "
Twitter and the Global Brain - Google Docs
The prevailing model for many years of how synapses between neurons in the brain are altered during learning has been Hebbian learning, which can be summarized as "neurons that fire together, wire together". In other words, in two neurons fire at the same time, the connection(s) between them will strengthened.
But recent evidence in neuroscience shows the truth is actually an interested twist on this idea - a twist that could have important implications as a model of how global consciousness could emerge from real-time social media like Twitter.
In reality, synapses are modified according to a rule called Spike Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP). In a nutshell, STDP says that if two neurons fire (= spike) in rapid succession, the connection from the one that fires first to the one that fires second will be strengthened.
In other words, if neuron A reliably fires shortly before neuron B, the connection from A to B will get stronger, so that next time when neuron A fires, neuron B will be more likely to fire too. And the opposite holds as well. In this example, since the firing of neuron B lags behind neuron A, the strength of the connection in that direction (from B to A), will be weakened. You could think of it as the neural equivalent of the old saying 'the early bird catches the worm' - a neuron that fires first gains increasing influence on its downstream neighbors.
STDP is a simple idea, but it has been shown to be a surprisingly powerful way that the brain uses for rapid pattern recognition and classification [1][2]. It turns out that using STDP, neurons naturally learn to specialize in detecting certain patterns in their inputs, even in the presence of lots of noise.
So what in the world does this have to do with social networks? There is an intriguing analogy between networks of neurons operating by the STDP rule and the emerging structure and functioning of real-time social networks like Twitter.
We Know The Experts Are Out There. - Expert Labs
"Expert Labs is a new independent initiative to help policy makers in our government take advantage of the expertise of their fellow citizens. How does it work? Simple:
1. We ask policy makers what questions they need answered to make better decisions.
2. We help the technology community create the tools that will get those answers.
3. We prompt the scientific & research communities to provide the answers that will make our country run better.
Each community provides its own unique expertise. And the end result is a government that uses the web not just to talk to citizens, but to listen to them.
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Collaboration and Collective Intelligence | MIT World
"Now that it’s possible to work, politick or party with partners round the world, round the clock, what have we got to show for it? These speakers offer some intriguing examples of the potential of internet-driven collectives, as well as some cautionary notes.
Moderator Thomas Malone describes a NASA “clickworker” project enabling amateurs to help identify craters on the surface of Mars; and Garry Kasparov’s 1999 chess match against ‘the world’ –a team that voted via the internet on its moves against the champion. Kasparov said it was the hardest game he’d ever played"
Hacia una Civilización de la Inteligencia Colectiva
""Toward a Civilization of Collective Intelligence" identifies the most important changes that have happened in our society. The slides introduce the necessity of a new language that can set a link between the machine process of cyberspace and the human collective intelligence, which is dynamic, in constant change and made in different languages, from different approaches. We need a language that represent the essence of Collective Intelligence as a Virtual World, understanding this term not only as a space where we can interact as avatars but as a global space that is formed by the human actions, their objects and interaction."
Massively collaborative mathematics : Article : Nature
"On 27 January 2009, one of us — Gowers — used his blog to announce an unusual experiment. The Polymath Project had a conventional scientific goal: to attack an unsolved problem in mathematics. But it also had the more ambitious goal of doing mathematical research in a new way. Inspired by open-source enterprises such as Linux and Wikipedia, it used blogs and a wiki to mediate a fully open collaboration. Anyone in the world could follow along and, if they wished, make a contribution. The blogs and wiki functioned as a collective short-term working memory, a conversational commons for the rapid-fire exchange and improvement of ideas.
The collaboration achieved far more than Gowers expected, and showcases what we think will be a powerful force in scientific discovery — the collaboration of many minds through the Internet."
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On 27 January 2009, one of us — Gowers — used his blog to announce an unusual experiment. The Polymath Project had a conventional scientific goal: to attack an unsolved problem in mathematics. But it also had the more ambitious goal of doing mathematical research in a new way. Inspired by open-source enterprises such as Linux and Wikipedia, it used blogs and a wiki to mediate a fully open collaboration. Anyone in the world could follow along and, if they wished, make a contribution. The blogs and wiki functioned as a collective short-term working memory, a conversational commons for the rapid-fire exchange and improvement of ideas.
The collaboration achieved far more than Gowers expected, and showcases what we think will be a powerful force in scientific discovery — the collaboration of many minds through the Internet.
Wisdom Council
Developed by organizational development consultant Jim Rough, a wisdom council is a one-time, randomly-selected group of stakeholders who, through special facilitation, produce a consensus statement which is made available to the larger population for further dialogue and action. For an example see "A High School Wisdom Council" on this site.
As a tool for collective intelligence, wisdom councils are most powerful when they are done periodically (e.g., for a week or two every year, each time with a different membership) as a function of ongoing community dialogue
Cloud Superintelligence
Slideshare: My presentation from the Ars Electronica cloud intelligence symposium in September 2009. The core question is how online networks can become smart.
The Cloud and Collaboration / Cloud Intelligence
Dimitar Tchurovsky’s Google Knol titled the ‘Global Virtual Brain and Mind Project’ is a good example of this. (Tchurovsky, 2009) He cites the conflicts of interests, media manipulations, bribery and the influence industry as barriers to a genuine global consensus. The response is a “worldwide social network of self-selected people resembling human brain and mind, who will collaborate in attempt to solve social problems.”
The associating of collaboration and global conscious is natural, as collaboration is central to our concept of community, and the global mind can be seen as an extension of community. We see much the same language as that used to describe the global mind., for example, “people inspired to create healthy communities cross pollinate ideas, connect & exchange stories that harness our collective wisdom.” (McCarthy) These examples are typical; they could be multiplied almost indefinitely.
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his is a common refrain. It expresses the idea that the cloud enables us to work together, to collaborate, to forge a new consensus. The cloud, in other words, reinforces the ways with which we have attempted hitherto to organize ourselves. The divisiveness, the factionalism, the disputes and conflicts that have blocked our efforts in the past are effectively overcome using the new technology.
Dimitar Tchurovsky’s Google Knol titled the ‘Global Virtual Brain and Mind Project’ is a good example of this. (Tchurovsky, 2009) He cites the conflicts of interests, media manipulations, bribery and the influence industry as barriers to a genuine global consensus. The response is a “worldwide social network of self-selected people resembling human brain and mind, who will collaborate in attempt to solve social problems.”
The associating of collaboration and global conscious is natural, as collaboration is central to our concept of community, and the global mind can be seen as an extension of community. We see much the same language as that used to describe the global mind., for example, “people inspired to create healthy communities cross pollinate ideas, connect & exchange stories that harness our collective wisdom.” (McCarthy) These examples are typical; they could be multiplied almost indefinitely.
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What distinguishes collaboration from these other forms of organization is a commonality of understanding or purpose. This theme permeates writing on the subject. Schrage calls collaboration “an act of shared creation and/or shared discovery” (Schrage, 1990, p. 6) Senge talks about the creation of a shared vision. (Senge, 1994)
In learning communities, as well, we see commonality or shared vision as central to the creation of a learning community. The idea that learning is social in nature has been a recurring theme in education, from Dewey to Brown & Duguid. Learning communities, write Kilpatrick, Barrett, & Jones, “are operationalised through collaboration, cooperation, and/or partnerships. The shared goals are achieved through working together and potentially building or creating new knowledge.” (Kilpatrick, Barrett, & Jones, 2003)
ieml
The IEML research program promotes a radical innovation in the notation and processing of semantics. IEML (Information Economy MetaLanguage) is a regular language that provides new methods for semantic interoperability, semantic navigation, collective categorization and self-referential collective intelligence. This research program is compatible with the major standards of the Web of data and is in tune with the current trends in social computing.
The paper explains the philosophical relevance of this new language, expounds its syntactic and semantic structures and ponders its possible implications for the growth of collective intelligence in cyberspace.
Crowdsourcing crowds – confused of calcutta
Using crowdsourcing to annotate and confirm the attendance at historical events where no other form of attendance verification is possible.
People tend not to go to such events alone. People tend to notice who’s next to them, who else they spoke to. And we now have the tools to collate that collective knowledge.
Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: Get Ready to Participate: Crowdsourcing and Governance
What I have argued for a few years now, and what I am trying to make clear in my dissertation, is that crowdsourcing has the potential to work outside of for-profit settings. In fact, it may be a suitable model for solving government problems, supplementing traditional forms of public participation to help government make better decisions with more citizen input.
Does closing roads cut delays? | csmonitor.com
File this one under “intensely counterintuitive.” A recent study has found that closing off certain streets can actually relieve traffic congestion.
Using Google Maps, a trio of scientists – Hyejin Youn and Hawoong Jeong, of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Michael Gastner, of the Santa Fe Institute – looked at traffic routes in Boston, New York, and London. Their paper, titled “The Price of Anarchy in Transportation Networks: Efficiency and Optimality Control” [PDF] and published in the journal Physical Letters, found that, when individual drivers seek the quickest route, they sometimes end up slowing things down for everybody.
It all hinges on something called Braess’s Paradox (and yes, I appreciate the irony of a Wikipedia entry that challenges the wisdom of crowds), which states that adding capacity to a network in which all the moving entities rationally seek the most efficient route can sometimes reduce the network’s overall efficiency.
Revisitint he Age of Enlightenment from a collective decision making systems perspective
This article explores the application of social algorithms that make use of Thomas Paine’s (English: 1737–1809) representatives, Adam Smith’s (Scottish: 1723–1790) self–interested actors, and Marquis de Condorcet’s (French: 1743–1794) optimal decision making groups. It is posited that technology–enabled social algorithms can better realize the ideals articulated during the Enlightenment.
WikiCity - WikiCity
Welcome to WikiCity... A city wiki for every city
WikiCity is much like an on-line newspaper, except anyone can contribute stories, photos, opinions, and local events! Find things to do, places to visit, share local history, exchange ideas, discuss issues within your community, or post a free classified ad in the WikiCity Marketplace.
Almost every page can be edited, however, due to the rate of inflation, user accounts are now twice as free. They are also optional, but you are encouraged to create one here: Create a User Account. Otherwise, get started by selecting your State from the map below:
Before and After Shots of Google's Iran Maps - O'Reilly Radar
There many places in the world where it is not possible for larger companies to map them. These can be for economic reasons as is the case for Black Rock City (the temporary 40,000 person home for Burning Man). Or for political reasons as is the case for Iran and countries such as China.
As I mentioned the other day Google greatly improved their map coverage of Iran via user contributions through their Mapmaker program. These user contributions were applied just a few weeks ago. Here are before and after screenshots of two Iranian cities. The before shot was taken on September 22, 2008; the after shots were taken on May 18, 2009.
You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy? - NYTimes.com
The success of Google, along with the rapid spread of the wireless Internet and sensors — like location trackers in cellphones and GPS units in cars — has touched off a race to cash in on collective intelligence technologies.
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Mr. Brown and about 100 other students living in Random Hall at M.I.T. have agreed to swap their privacy for smartphones that generate digital trails to be beamed to a central computer. Beyond individual actions, the devices capture a moving picture of the dorm’s social network.
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The students’ data is but a bubble in a vast sea of digital information being recorded by an ever thicker web of sensors, from phones to GPS units to the tags in office ID badges, that capture our movements and interactions. Coupled with information already gathered from sources like Web surfing and credit cards, the data is the basis for an emerging field called collective intelligence.
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MediaShift Idea Lab . Maps for Social Change and Community Involvement | PBS
2008 was the year of aggregating data related to local communities and displaying that information on maps. Knight News Challenge grantee EveryBlock, for example, labored to convince city governments to make their data more open and accessible, and then created a beautiful map interface to display what is happening where in real time.
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2008 was the year of aggregating data related to local communities and displaying that information on maps. Knight News Challenge grantee EveryBlock, for example, labored to convince city governments to make their data more open and accessible, and then created a beautiful map interface to display what is happening where in real time.
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Other examples of projects which have set out to add geographic locations to information found on the internet, and to display that information on map interfaces, include outside.in, WikiMapia, Flickrvision, HousingMaps, Oakland Crimespotting, and hundreds of others.
Many of these projects also make their data available in KML format, which is what Google Earth uses to overlay information on a rich three dimensional interface of our planet. By selecting multiple layers in Google Earth and zooming in on a single neighborhood block, I can quickly filter through what information is most relavant to me including recent photos taken by Google Street View and live streaming webcams aggregated by Webcams.travel.
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