May 6, 2010 by sean.

Researchers from University College London have developed a digital tool that allows people to attach memories to objects in the form of text, audio or video [via PhyOrg]:

Posted in innovation, science, software, collective intelligence | 1 Comment »

April 9, 2010 by sean.

Posted in games and simulations, learning theory, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

August 18, 2009 by sean.

A virtual hand to guide you to your next purchase…

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July 19, 2009 by sean.

Ze Frank talks with host Jesse Thorn about creativity, what works on the internet and why, and being a traffic whore. Plus a whole lot of other stuff, like rubbing his head on the microphone.

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April 29, 2009 by sean.

Researchers at the University of Pannonia, Hungary demonstrate how sparrrows solve problems more quickly as a group than as individuals [via scienceblogs]:

Liker and Bokony’s sparrow experiments are the first to show that large animal groups outperform smaller ones at problem-solving tasks where they have to invent new techniques. House sparrows are a good choice for a study like this. They are very social birds that live in flocks of anywhere from a few individuals to a few hundred. They are opportunists that use their relatively large brains to find food in all sorts of new environments.

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March 30, 2009 by sean.

New research from Brigham Young University on collaboration reveals that diverse groups are more effective problem solving even though they believe they aren’t [via Newswise]:

The experiment also revealed a fallacy in the assumptions we make about our own effectiveness in groups. The subjects in the experiment were members of different fraternities and sororities. In general, when the newcomer was from the same sorority or fraternity as the other team members, the group reported that it worked well together, but was less likely to correctly solve the problem.

In contrast, when the newcomer was a member of a rival sorority or fraternity, the opposite was true — these groups felt they worked together less effectively, yet they significantly outperformed socially homogenous groups.

“What’s really distinct about this research is that, from a self-reporting perspective, what people perceive to be beneficial turns out to be dead wrong, Liljenquist says. “The teams that felt they worked least effectively together were ironically the top performers!”

Posted in psychology, learning theory, collective intelligence | No Comments »

March 12, 2009 by sean.

Might “God” be an evolutionary abstraction of the collective intelligence of all humanity [or at least one’s local “tribe”]?

Research at the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland suggests that human capacity for religion is based in lateral frontal lobe regions and other theory-of-mind areas, “the same recently evolved brain regions that divine the feelings and intentions of other people” [via New Scientist]:

“It’s not surprising that religious beliefs engage mainly the theory-of-mind areas, as they are about virtual beings who are treated as having essentially human mental traits, just as characters in a novel or play are,” comments Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist at the University of Oxford.

Posted in neuroscience, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

February 3, 2009 by sean.

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February 3, 2009 by sean.

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January 28, 2009 by sean.

Posted in innovation, science, pervasive computing, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

January 25, 2009 by sean.

Posted in fun, pervasive computing, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

December 28, 2008 by sean.

Allen Institute for Brain Science encouraging open collaboration and personal philantropy re: brain research [via economist.com]:

Clearly the model of providing a freely accessible database is a successful one. In a sense, we have challenged other researchers to offer greater access to their findings. Will they take the challenge? My bet is that over the next 18 months we are going to see more open access and more collaboration.

In the next decade we will make great strides in uncovering the complex network of gene interactions that govern every major brain disease and will create effective therapies through traditional drug discovery or new methods for modifying gene activity. Just as the use of cardiac pacemakers or artificial knees is common today, a new generation of implantable pacemakers for the brain will be widely used to treat everything from depression to addiction and Parkinson’s disease.

Our increasing knowledge will shed light on how information is processed and stored in the human brain at a molecular level. Even now, scientists are already mimicking the brain’s information-processing capabilities to create a new generation of computer processes. We are going to get far better at this as our understanding of the brain improves.

Private philanthropy will continue to grow and help to accelerate scientific discovery. I believe we are nearing a tipping-point in brain research where the discoveries, treatments and cures will come more quickly than the questions. Private dollars, combined with broader adoption of open collaboration and data-sharing models, will help push us over the top. Success will follow.

Posted in science, neuroscience, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

November 25, 2008 by sean.

The Bionic Brain slides from the DevLearn 2008 conference are now available on patternhunter.com.

Posted in work, pervasive computing, augmented cognition, collective intelligence, mobile computing | No Comments »

November 2, 2008 by sean.

David Spark catalogs some great “Twitter moments” that demonstrate some unique advantages of microblogging [via mashable]:

Being a Twitter user (@dspark) for some time now, I like many others have become evangelical about the micro-blogging tool.

I believe what makes Twitter so valuable are these moments of connectivity that simply aren’t possible through any other communications tool. I’ve had these “Twitter moments” and I set out to discover “Twitter moments” from others as well. What all the following stories have in common is a Twitter user had a question or a concern, and someone (or many people) responded. Twitter was the connective tissue that made that moment happen in a time of need.

Speaking of Twitter trends, Bruno Peeters created the following graph…

based on the twitterers I found from Belgium (over 200), my home country. Each Belgian twitterer is indicated as an ellipse, all other twitterers (over 500) are represented as a dot.

There are twitterers from Belgium using their mother tongue (Dutch or French). Others however prefer to use English. These twitterers are far more often connected to other twitterers from all over the world. Interesting enough, there are quite a few twitterers who are not connected at all to other persons on the Twitter platform. If a graph is based on friends, these persons will be missed.

Posted in software, collective intelligence, mobile computing, social networks | No Comments »

October 14, 2008 by sean.

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September 6, 2008 by sean.

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July 20, 2008 by sean.

I have finally gotten around to reading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. It’s truly brilliant and here is a taste from the supporting blog [which unfortunately seemed to run out of steam in May]:

Most user-generated material is actually personal communication in a public forum. Because of this personal address , it makes no more sense to label this content than it would to call a phone call with your mother “family-generated content.” A good deal of user-generated content isn’t actually “content” at all, at least not in the sense of material designed for an audience. Instead, a lot of it is just part of a conversation. Mainstream media has often missed this, because they are used to thinking of any group of people as an audience.

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May 26, 2008 by sean.

While Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites continue to receive a lot of attention, the real influence may lie within traditional social networks [washington post]:

When researchers analyzed the patterns of those who managed to quit smoking over the 32-year period, they found that the decision appeared to be highly influenced by whether someone close to them stopped. A person whose spouse quit was 67 percent more likely to kick the habit. If a friend gave it up, a person was 36 percent more likely to do so. If a sibling quit, the chances increased by 25 percent.

A co-worker had an influence — 34 percent — only if the smoker worked at a small firm. The effects were stronger among the more educated and among those who were casual or moderate smokers. Neighbors did not appear to influence each other, but friends did even if they lived far away.

“You appear to have to have a close relationship with the person for it to be influential,” Fowler said.

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March 13, 2008 by sean.

Swarm Intelligence may not be complexity emerging from simple interactions after all [from MSNBC LiveScience]:

Although ants are noted for their communal cooperation, the ranks of ant royalty are actually riddled with cheating and corruption, a new study finds.

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February 27, 2008 by sean.

I saw this a while ago and, until talking with a friend of mine over lunch, forgot how truly amazing it is…

Posted in pervasive computing, user-created content, work, learning theory, augmented cognition, mobile computing, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

December 8, 2007 by sean.

Which employees have access to the Tribal Knowledge Sharing tool and which group of employees use it the most?

Everyone has access yet not everyone knows about the tools, especially people who don’t spend much time in front of a computer such as installers and technicians. Most of the content available today is focused on order entry so the most frequent users are call center and front office personnel. We are working to dramatically change that in the coming months with much more content and webinar sessions focused on topics of interest to other groups.

The long-term plan is not just about helping people get immediate access to content that helps them in their current jobs. It’s really about making it really easy for anyone to learn about anything, including the tasks that other people do. This helps each of us gain a broader understanding of how complete processes [not just the part directly in our hands] get down and ultimately impact the business. When you know more about the job of someone who is “upstream” or “downstream” from your responsibilities, it’s much easier to have dialogue about improving the bigger picture.

Having easy access to everything also improves career growth through cross-training, including self-initiated learning to help you prepare for your next job opportunity. Showing up at an interview saying, “I have dug into the knowledge resources about this job over the past few weeks” goes a lot further than showing up and saying, “So what do you guys do over here anyway?”

What are the most frequently used resources?

The most recent modules tend to be the most frequently used regardless of content. Most of the content is “disposable” in the sense that it has a limited shelf-life. Given the constantly changing nature of our business, most of the content we learned a year ago is no longer relevant. It’s as if we should constantly ask our brains, “What have you learned for me lately?”

Since the web-based training module contributors are anonymous, how do you recognize the employees who make excellent contributions?

We chose to make the posts anonymous to encourage peers to evaluate content on its own merit rather than voting for friends or dismissing the contributions of “the others” [to borrow a term from Lost].

In the upper right corner of the page, the users who have the highest rankings are featured in what, over, time becomes a king of the hill bragging right, as fleeting as that may be. While getting recognized for highly-valued contributions is great, most people who add to the mix do it out of a desire to help their peers and the company. We often tend to forget that most of us are motivated to learn and grow not just for our own personal gain, but to be part of something larger that benefits the greater good.

How do you address vandalism [profanity, inappropriate humor, flaming, etc.] in the knowledge sharing system?

It’s never happened so far. All new posts are reviewed by an approver before they show on the main page. Of the few that don’t make it, most are duplicate posts [a bug we had to fix in the system]. Once a post is public, any user can flag it for review which immediately pulls that post out of circulation for an approver to scrutinize more thoroughly. While flagging is also rare, the commitment of users to keep the information accurate and valuable is what makes the tool work.

Aren’t you afraid that people will post misinformation that will encourage others to do the wrong things?

When we described the concept of peer-to-peer knowledge sharing to an executive at another large company, he was outraged by the potential of a tool like this for spreading rumors, lies, “shortcuts” and misinformation, especially at the level of front-line employees. We asked, “Isn’t is scary that the same people you trust to talk with your customers you don’t trust to talk with one another?”

Human beings are social creatures and arguably, we learn most of what we know from casual conversations. Training classes, books, videos, and similar methods are also useful, of course. At the same time, having the chance to think, verbalize our thoughts and get social feedback is an important part of internalizing knowledge rather than passively consuming information. All of this happens in what we call “six feet of separation” meaning that most of our questions go to people in the immediate physical vicinity. If I have to get up and find someone to ask a question, it’s because I think that the people immediately around me can’t give me a “good enough” answer. The truth is, most of the time, a “good enough” answer is right there in my peers.

Doesn’t this mean that subject matter experts and trainers get pushed to the side when any one can create and publish their own content?

The truth is, there is no such thing as a “subject matter expert” or “trainer.” Both of these labels represent a relationship based on trust, and trust changes over time.

As soon as the training session, meeting or rally are over, people talk to one another in the hallways, breakrooms, smoking areas, etc. and ask questions like, “What did you think about that? Do you agree? Do these people know what they are talking about?” In other words, people are always creating and sharing content with one another and evaluating the trustworthiness of everything they hear. The difference is, with tools that encourage sharing ideas and lessons with a larger audience, more people can benefit, evaluate and weigh in. Plus, our job should be to help everyone contribute to the business goals, not to protect the special status of a few people who supposedly are never wrong.

Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” We wonder if in the future, everyone will be an expert for 15 minutes.

Are there any key strategies when launching this training approach to ensure its success?

We are always “launching” these types of tools and don’t see that process as ever being finished. Like a lot of Web2.0 start-ups, we are perpetually in “beta” mode and figuring thing out as we go along.

One of our most important early lessons learned is that this type of approach is not something you can pull of with “top-down” mandates. People have to want to use tools like these for them to take off. The best way to get momentum is to provide a very intuitive interface and identify highly-motivated early adopters who contribute strong content in the beginning to get the ball rolling.

We used a low-tech version of social network analysis to identify trusted resources in the division, the people who tend to get the most questions from others. We found that these “hubs” in the social network didn’t necessarily have any special titles or formal status; they just had reputations for being approachable, knowledgeable and helpful. It turns out that most of these “go to” people are stressed by their popularity and often frustrated by answering the same questions over and over. When we find people in that situation, we say, “What if you could answer these questions once in about 5 minutes, direct other people to your answer, help them find other answers that they might have, and still get all the credit for your genius?” Most people say, “Where do I sign up?”

Posted in work, user-created content, learning theory, collective intelligence | No Comments »

October 21, 2007 by sean.

Rob Brown on developing a bottom-up collective intelligence model for improving Netflix recommendations:

What was striking to me was that this system, iterating over a massive amount of sloppy, low precision data, could organize the model with such stunning precision. I could type in the names of two movies, and ask “how similar” they are, and the results were almost always exactly what I would expect. I could type the name of a movie, and get a list, in order, of the top 20 movies that are seen as most similar. And it did quite a good job at the assigned task, predicting how users would rate movies. Those who claimed the process couldn’t work, after seeing the results, were shocked.

The point, of course, is that this system is very evolution-like, in that lots of messy data, with very little apparent “intelligence,” processed by a simple iterative algorithm, can find sophisticated equilibria with a great deal of precision. Looking directly at the raw data, such as at an individual user’s set of ratings, would indicate a lot more slop than is apparent in the final model. The system doesn’t “know” that a movie is a science fiction movie, any more than natural selection “knows” why a particular mutation in the DNA increases the chance of an animal surviving to adulthood. Nonetheless, it works, against all intuition. [via karmatics.com]

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October 2, 2007 by sean.

Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica, discusses his controversial book A New Kind of Science which suggests that all complex systems emerge from recursive applications of simple rules, with Charlie Rose [starting around 14:20].

Posted in software, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

September 6, 2007 by sean.

“Corey Phelps, an assistant professor of management and organization at the UW Business School, and Melissa Schilling, an associate professor at NYU, “analyzed the innovative performance of 1,106 companies in 11 different industries over a six-year period. They examined the pattern or structure of strategic alliance relationships among companies in each industry. They found that how firms are connected to one another influences the number of patented inventions they obtained. Those that secured more patents were classified by Phelps and Schilling as being more creative.”

According to the researchers, “companies reap greater benefits when they are part of a network that exhibits a high degree of clustering and only a few degrees of separation, both of which are characteristic of a small world network.” [via zdnet.com]

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