◥ University. {q} PhD. {t} Themes. {t} CI. Genome of Collective Intelligence. Our current understanding of how organizations can be designed is based primarily on observations of the large hierarchical organizations that rose to prominence in the 20th century. But over the past decade, the rise of the Internet has led to the emergence of surprising new forms of collective intelligence, including Wikipedia, Linux, Google, eBay, and many others. This project involves categorizing and analyzing these new crowd-based ways of organizing work.
The project is identifying a set of design patterns (or “genes”) that can be combined and recombined to create systems that harness the intelligence of crowds. Publications Malone, T. W., Laubacher, R., & Dellarocas, C. The Collective Intelligence Genome, Sloan Management Review, Spring 2010, 51, 3, 21-31 (Reprint No. 51303) Malone, T., Laubacher, R., & Johns, T. Early work on this project included development of an online Handbook of Collective Intelligence, editable, like Wikipedia, by anyone interested. (MIT) Handbook of Collective Intelligence. ◇ MALONE, Thomas. ◇ LAUBACHER, Robert. ◇ DELLAROCAS, Chris. ◇ JOHNS, Tammy. ◇ HERMAN, George. ◇ LAI, Richard. 2012-11-20 - Thomas Malone: The rise of the micro. 2011-07-29 - The Future of Work 2.0. 2011 - (Malone et al) The Big Idea: The Age of Hyperspecialization. The Idea in Brief As labor becomes more knowledge based and communications technology advances, the division of labor accelerates.
The hyperspecialization of workers may be inevitable given the quality, speed, and cost advantages it offers employers—and the power it gives individuals to devote flexible hours to tasks of their choice. This will force managers to master a new set of skills: dividing work into assignable micro tasks; attracting specialized workers to perform them; ensuring acceptable quality; and integrating many pieces into whole solutions. Firms will learn to rely on a new breed of intermediaries—from small assignment brokers like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to complex problem posers like InnoCentive. Hyperspecialization also creates new social challenges, such as the possibility of exploitation as work quickly finds the cheapest takers, and the opportunity for deception when workers can’t see the larger purposes to which they are contributing.
Fast, Cheap, and Under Control. 2010 - (Malone et al) The Collective Intelligence Genome. References (6) 1. T.W. Malone, “The Future of Work” (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004); J. Howe, “Crowdsourcing” (New York: Crown Business, 2008); J. 2. 3. 4. I. Ii. Show All References Acknowledgments Funding for this work was provided by the MIT Center for Collective intelligence, including special support for this project by BT Group plc.