Collective Intelligence 2014: Geeks meet Wonks

The tools, insights and ways of working now emerging from the field of  ‘Collective Intelligence’ are increasingly being employed to tackle complex public problems. This umbrella term spans a diverse collection of experiments in everything from prediction markets to collaborative democracy, social computing and organizational design. As the pace of discovery in these arenas accelerates, the need to translate learning between communities of research and communities of practice has only become more pressing.  Without meaningful cross-fertilization, we risk losing much of the value from hard-won insights.
This week, at MIT’s Collective Intelligence Conference, GovLab will be hosting an Ignite matchmaking session to spark a conversation between these parallel worlds: Geeks, meet Wonks. At the event, a panel of six presenters will be sketching out their projects and the very real-world dilemmas they face. They are seeking advice, feedback and collaborations from the assembled Collective Intelligence community. We’re offering a preview of the projects they’ll be talking about and a wider invitation to share your feedback via twitter and the event Hackpad.
Chris Jones (@goaskjonesy) is a collaboration expert at the Department of Defense. His team works to accelerate online collaboration across the department. Knowledge sharing in this context is especially vital because, as he explains, “it often concerns matters of life and death involving thousands of people trying desperately to find each other and communicate.” Operating in this complex, fast-paced environment there is little space for reflection, let alone exchange with the academic community. Chris Jones describes his motivation for looking outwards in this way: ‘we have knowledge IN what we do, but don’t have knowledge OF what we are doing”. Read his one page project description here
Another panel presenter is Ted Smith from the City of Louisville (@tedsmithphd). The project he is talking about sits squarely within the rapidly expanding field of citizen science – where there is vast potential for public data collection to contribute to policymaking. Ted will be focussing the challenges of utilising data collected about the quality of ambient air. This is a complex area because, as he notes, the emergence of new tools and public participation in this domain is not without some risks and drawbacks. Lower fidelity measurements undertaken by citizens could easily be marginalized in favour of expensive (but quality controlled) professional efforts. At the session, he will be looking to the Collective Intelligence community to help him find concrete examples of citizen science improving a measure of social wellbeing.
Read Ted’s overview “Citizen Science: Harvesting Data from the Commons” to find out more.
We’re fortunate to have two speakers from Consumer Reports taking part in the panel. Firstly, Susan Leopold (@leopoldsrl) will be talking about the ‘Crowd Signal’ project developed by Consumer Reports and the Consumerist. That project seeks to tap the wisdom of the crowd so as to alleviate the frustration involved in selecting the right cell plan and carrier. Instead of relying on confusing and misleading information from carriers, consumers would be able to access an online tool which aggregated user ratings of different carriers. Read more about their efforts to build this tool in their one pager here.
Also from Consumer Reports, Tara Montgomery (@TaraCRHealth) is looking for feedback on her work on the “human side of healthcare”. In particular, her idea for a crowdsourced ‘Value our Health’ project would focus on enhancing the traditional doctor-patient conversation by better personalizing the electronic medical records systems. Tara outlines more about the idea here.
Approaching the question of collective problem solving from the angle of collaborative work spaces is Molly W. Rubenstein of Artisan’s Asylum, a non-profit design and fabrication center (@artisansasylum). Amongst other things, she’ll be looking to the crowd for answers on how best to measure the impact of participation in a collaborative environment. Learn more about Artisan’s Asylum in Molly’s summary.
Finally, David Moore (@ppolitics) will be sharing a ground-breaking new project from the Participatory Politics Foundation project called AskThem. Individuals and organizations using this free platform will be able to pose questions to any U.S. elected official and any verified Twitter account. The tool draws on official government data for over 142,000 elected officials nationwide, from local city council members up to the U.S. Congress. Find out more here.
What other examples and ideas should these speakers be drawing on? Is there relevant research you could share? In the spirit of tapping the wisdom of the crowd we will be opening up this conversation via twitter (#CI2014ignite) and the public Hackpad:
https://gov30.hackpad.com/Ignite-Collective-Intelligence-2014-xl2FOXtinpp