MIT Sloan’s Thomas W. Malone, author of The Future of Work, on how the smartest companies will use emerging technology to tap the power of collective intelligence
An interview with Thomas W. Malone, director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, by editor-in-chief Michael S. Hopkins. These new technologies are not just fancy technologies that let individual people do different things better or faster. These new technologies change the essence of organizations. An organization itself is really primarily a huge human-based machine for communicating information and making decisions. And these new technologies are all about communicating information and helping to make decisions. So, to a greater degree than any technologies since, for instance, those that enabled the Industrial Revolution, we’re now in the midst of a transformation in how businesses are organized that is enabled this time not by new kinds of production technology, but by new kinds of coordination technology.
5 Comments On: A Billion Brains are Better Than One
Enjoyed seeing this in combination with Clive Thompson’s article in Wired http://bit.ly/d9oxLx Agree that we need to learn how to recognize our opportunities and how to make solid decisions around organizational design and technology choices. More on the topic here: http://www.terrigriffith.com/blog/2010/03/24/cyborgs-weavers-let-systems-savvy-guide/
Very informative video.
I think there’s some kind of emergency of changing HR reflex, management learning and behaviours, while our times are changing, and the next generation so. And in their working positions too. Diversity, innovation groups, collective thoughts are so strong tools to progress and burst old ideas…We’re facing the new leadership trend, and companies have to adapt them, if they want to recruit and keep key competences.
Tried to put some ideas in order, in my personal blog, feel free to comment at http://evidencesx.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/a-matter-of-change
Thanks for post and video, very useful facts.
yes, I absolutely agree. collective skill is more than individual skill. every person has its own capacity, if they blend together under strong leadership, everything will be possible
This type of open-source model has worked very successfully in some technology applications. But for the model to work the contributors must have a strong motivation to be part of the stakeholder community.