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Therefore, we can say that the greatest example of Collective Intelligence is the Internet itself.

ollective Intelligence (CI) is also referred to as Group Intelligence and “Group IQ” alike. Some researchers believe that CI has been around for 3.5 billion years occurring in the most basic forms of biological organisms. In very broad terms CI alludes to positive outcomes obtained through Collaboration among human beings. Therefore, we can say that the greatest example of Collective Intelligence is the Internet itself.

From the stand point of applied CI we could say that there are two major camps. Although in reality there could be many more. However, for purposes of simplicity we will settle only on two. There is the Information Technology (IT) and Computer Science camp which use sophisticated algorithms to make inferences about DATA; data which ultimately, “people” generate one way or another throughout their daily activities in this modern world. We could call it the “Artificial-Intelligence-mathematical-statistical-programming” approach.

The other camp uses a humanistic approach toward CI. This falls under the purview of Philosophy, Sociology, Economics, Politics, Management, et al. This view contents that all human beings form an integral part of the CI process. In this context, modern day technology also plays a very important role as real-time enabler of CI in the human experience.

Although the focus might be different, both camps can yield extremely valuable results within the fast-paced-and-complex-modern-day organization.

Professor Thomas W. Malone from MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence speaks about CI. This video interview was conducted by Martin Wasserman in December 2008.

In sum, applied CI disciplines attempt to harness the aggregate inputs from a diverse human population in a given domain-problem-area such as:

• Decision making
• Coordination
• Self-governance
• Self-organization
• Prediction markets
• And many more

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s a member of an organization, be it a Corporation, an NGO, a Government, a Club, an Institution, a Sole-proprietorship etc., you have a direct and vested interest in its well being and survival. Simply put, in most cases your job's security or even future promotions depend on it.

You can see this already happening with the great number of bankruptcies occurring to organizations large and small, alike.

Today there are an increased and accelerated number of survival-styled-pressures placed on organizations all the time. Some of these pressures are so intense, that they can actually undermine these organizations to the point of total breakdown and subsequent failure.

You can see this already happening with the great number of bankruptcies occurring to organizations large and small, alike. But even if your organization is flourishing today, it behooves you to be in the lookout for those tools that can further its future success.

On a more positive note, in this Brave New World of increased complexity and change, Collective Intelligence and the applied usage of its super-brain could prove to be one powerful-leveraging tool for you. Therefore, CI has the potential to facilitate your organization's transition into a bright new future.

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s with any new technology it becomes very difficult to predict how it will be most beneficial. In fact it is the unforeseen successful applications the ones that usually startle even the subject matter experts. And in the case of CI this phenomenon is more accentuated since CI uses as its premise the collaboration efforts of large numbers of people.

In sum, by adopting CI you and your organization could benefit in unique ways.

We all know that due partly to their diverse cultural backgrounds, people can have very dissimilar and unpredictable ideas and this is good thing. The more diverse the sample population, the broader the spectrum of ideas, which in turn, increases the chances that a correct answer to a given problem will be found.

For example, the probability of finding the correct answer to a question on the first result page from a Google search is fairly high. In very broad terms Google's PageRank search algorithm relies on the aggregation of millions of people performing searches every day. In other words, the likelihood that several people have asked the same exact question before is very high. Especially if we consider the huge sample populations consisting of billions of searches that are performed regularly.

In sum, by adopting CI you and your organization could benefit in unique ways. As to the specific ways in which it will benefit, it is entirely dependent on the ad-hoc characteristics of your organization. Nevertheless, the following list highlights a few of those potential benefits.

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es. Your organization's culture more than likely will be affected. But then again, corporate culture changes are a normal component of an organization's lifecycle. What we must ask ourselves is whether the overall changes are positive or negative. However, the depth of these changes will depend on many key factors.

Are the stakeholders convinced of the benefits of CI so that they commit to reorganize the corporate culture?

For example, should a pilot CI project turn out to be very successful, will your organization move towards adoption of this pilot to a broader base within the organization? Are stakeholders sold out on the benefits provided by CI so that they are willing to reorganize the corporate culture?

We also need to consider whether your Organizational Culture is strong or weak. In a strong environment employees easily align themselves with any organizational initiatives. Whereas in the weak ones employees need a lot more coaxing and supervision in order to buy into new policies.

Charles Handy breaks down the organizational culture into four types which are easily and almost intuitively understood. Which of the following types does your organization's culture gravitate towards? CI will probably have an impact on all of these types but to varying degrees.

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efore enumerating some CI examples we will use Professor Thomas W. Malone's broad working definition. Collective intelligence is groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent.

Since the advent of the Web around 1994 there have been many instances of the usage of Collective Intelligence. Some of these instances have been spectacular successes which have made ample use of Web 2.0 techniques to harness massive collaboration efforts.

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uccessful CI projects will probably follow a similar path as those followed by the “early adoption phases” of preceding pioneering technologies. However, early adoption does not automatically guarantee that an organization will leapfrog its competitors and run towards a bright new future. The cost-benefit-risk-ratio is pronounced and the outcomes could go either way. Nevertheless, even long-shot opportunities set the stage for growth at higher orders of magnitude.

Triumphant organizations will exhibit some common characteristics such as:

The following list of premises is an attempt to make a compelling case for an early adoption of CI.

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e cannot call CI a technology per se. Instead you could think of it as a discipline or an umbrella which encompasses many evolving techniques and methodologies. In fact, with the explosive growth of the Internet the study of CI as a discipline has intensified. It is perhaps against this background that patterns have started to emerge such that they seem to validate previous research findings.

We can look at the success of a great number of Open Source projects such as Linux, Apache and MySQL.

Maybe this is one of the reasons which led, roughly three years ago, to the creation of MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence.

So if we concentrate on events that have occurred during the past few decades then we can say that CI is a new technology or better yet a new discipline of sorts.

For example we can look at the success of a great number of Open Source projects such as Linux, Apache and MySQL. The power of the CI is also patently manifested in Web 2.0 endeavors such as Wikipedia, Social Networks, USENET, Google's PageRank algorithms, etc.

Lastly, this “new technology” is moving into the corporate world as early adopters begin to discover it.

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Furthermore, let's also assume that these contributions far exceed the contributions of the VP of Sales and Marketing. In this scenario, how should the organization reward the doorman vis-á-vis the VP of Sales and Marketing?

s with anything new, there will be some form of resistance toward CI in order to gain acceptance. Due to CI's innate and significant paradigm shift, some organizations will exhibit tremendous resistance and may not embrace the CI potential to its fullest, if at all. Fortunately, there will be quite a number of forward looking and open organizations that will try in earnest to take advantage of the promises of CI. The following list identifies some of the salient challenges posed to any CI project.

• FLATTENING HIERARCHIES: It is possible that successful CI projects may yield information regarding the true usefulness of certain job functions within the organization. In order to realize ongoing efficiency gains there will be a tendency and pressure toward flattening hierarchical modes of organizations in favor of network models.

• RESISTANCE TO CHANGE: Many workers and specially those who hold any kind of management position could feel threatened by having to follow ideas that are not their own. They could feel that they are relinquishing power and control to the group. This is especially true in the current work environment in which job insecurity is triggered by current generalized economic woes. Thus workers are trying very hard to portray themselves as indispensable to the organization, in order to secure or preserve their jobs.

• NOT USING RESULT FINDINGS: Even in light of positive result evidence from previous CI pilot programs, tests or experiments, there would a lot of pressure from established command-and-control practices to second guess the results and choose a different approach based on individual opinion.

• INFORMATION SILOS: Information silos denote the tendency for some departments to monopolize organization-owned-data as a means to exert control and power. In a contrarian view, CI projects readily emphasize the sharing of data. This is aimed at comprehensive collaboration across the organization. Breaking barriers to allow full access can prove to be a difficult challenge.

• INADEQUATE INFRASTRUCTURE: Some organizations may lack appropriate communication mechanisms that permit free flow of information and ideas, as required by CI methodologies. For example they may have no access or perhaps restricted access to organization wide Forums, wiki, IM, e-mail, Internet, etc.

• TRAINING: Lack of good training, especially among the organization's stakeholders may make it difficult for them to embrace new technologies in general and CI in particular. This will also impact how they convey CI to their subordinates.

• SECRECY VS. TRANSPARENCY: A great deal of data which can be critical toward sound decision-making may be hidden from the organization under the guise of “confidential and high security.”

• MISTRUST: Some organizations may be overzealous in their mistrust toward its members, thus creating an environment which stifles collaboration and consequently CI.

• GROUPTHINK: Organizations whose members tend to have very similar profiles, may exhibit locked-step reasoning which is counter to CI premises in which diversity in points of view is of utmost importance.

• COORDINATION: With multiple players which could and should be encouraged to participate in the CI process, such as: Employees, Consultants, Stockholders, Customers, Suppliers, Executive Management, Oversight Committees, etc., the problems of coordination become more complex. Promoting cooperation among seemly dissimilar groups can be difficult.

• STIMULUS AND REWARDS: In flat organizations the mechanisms of stimulus and reward tend to favor those members who have directly benefited the organization and these members are easily identifiable. On the other hand, people who have been accustomed to the idea that benefits are automatically accrued according to rank (favoritism) will perceive this as a threat to their earning potential.

  For example, let's assume that a low-paid-doorman working in a CI project manages to make large and direct contributions to the organization's bottom line. Furthermore, let's also assume that these contributions far exceed the contributions of the VP of Sales and Marketing. In this scenario, how should the organization reward the doorman vis-á-vis the VP of Sales and Marketing?

• STIFLING CREATIVITY: CI encourages creativity. However, “power based organizations” tend to stifle creativity, accepting only that which radiates from the top. Such organizations may not approve of the increased creative contributions which come from lower-rung echelons.

• FEEDBACK MECHANISMS: Not having appropriate sensing mechanisms could derail an otherwise viable CI project because of lack or incorrect and untimely information which is necessary in order to make on-going-fine-tuning adjustments. A precondition for a successful CI project requires well defined goals, metrics, sensing and feedback loop mechanism.

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projects are by their very nature “custom projects” tailored to your organization. It is obvious that the length of time required to complete a CI project depends entirely on your organization, the size of the project and its complexities. Nevertheless, we could tentatively say that a CI pilot project could be completed by a single consultant in as little a three months.

We could tentatively say that a CI pilot project could be completed by a single consultant in as little a three months.

On the other hand, a full-fledge CI project that impacts your organization's structure could take a team of CI consultants plus assigned personnel, a significant number of man hours to complete.

This is the reason why the first order of business for a CI project is to allocate time to the creation of the General project plan such that a realistic scope, resources and timeline are defined early on.

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ALAM.ORG offers standard training seminars or custom training seminars on CI. These seminars can be provided at the Client site or off-premises. Custom seminars require upfront Business Analysis performend by BALAM.ORG consultants. Please refer to the steps described in the product menu item called Get started on this web site.

For example, before starting a CI engagement, the Client's Executive Management Team may require a one to two day CI immersion seminar to get up to speed on the current state of CI.

Currently, BALAM.ORG is developing the following CI training seminars:

• 5010 - Introduction to Collective Intelligence
• 5020 - Collective Intelligence Implementation
• 5030 - Applied Collective Intelligence
• 5040 - Advanced topics on Collective Intelligence

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