Introduction The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence recently published an important overview of the theory and mechanisms behind successful crowdsourcing efforts. Their report, called “Harnessing Crowds: Mapping the Genome of Collective Intelligence“, can be found here. Their research reveals similarities behind many high-profile collective intelligence (CI) systems, including Threadless, Wikipedia and InnoCentive. It then describes how [...]
Drawing a Better Panarchy Diagram
June 29 10
I am always on the lookout for good graphics and diagrams for my lectures on complexity and adaptive change. I often use the Panarchy cycle, which is a useful theoretical model for explaining how complex adaptive systems change over time. The image above is from Garry Peterson‘s excellent page describing Panarchy and the Adaptive Cycle [...]
Oxford Future of Cities Scenarios
June 10 10
Last year I participated in a large scenario planning effort as part of the University of Oxford’s “Future of Cities” programme. The project interviewed a range of business leaders, property developers, environmentalists, community activists, political scientists, engineers, architects and designers from around the world. It then extracted a variety of themes and drivers in using a traditional [...]
On learning, collapse and the reduction of complexity
May 11 10
“…in its beginning it is easy to cure, but hard to recognize; whereas, after a time, not having been detected and treated at the first, it becomes easy to recognize but impossible to cure.” – Niccolo Machievelli In response to a Twitter conversation with Dave Snowden and Andrew Curry, regarding the need / possibility of [...]
Slides from my recent talk at MIT
April 21 10
I recently was back at MIT presenting some of my research on web-based techniques for collaborative foresight and online scenario planning. Here are the slides from my presentation. The presentation starts with a general overview of scenario planning, then provides an example from some scenarios work I did with the Oxford Future of Cities Programme (in [...]
Harnessing Collective Intelligence for Crowdsourced Scenario Planning
April 8 10
To anyone in or around Cambridge, MA this week, please join me tomorrow for a preliminary dissertation colloquium, in which I present a proposed schema for online, participatory scenario planning systems using crowdsourced or “collective intelligence” approaches. This presentation will provide an update on the research I’ve been doing with various collaborators (including Dave Snowden [...]
Online Scenario Planning Results
March 31 10
A few weeks ago I issued a call for participation in an experiment in online scenario planning with colleagues Dave Snowden and Wendy Schultz. The experiment was one of several which I am conducting for my PhD. I am still crunching the numbers but I thought readers would be interested in some early statistics on [...]
Hopes and Dreams: An experiment in crowd sourced scenario planning
March 12 10
Please take 5 minutes to contribute to (and test out) a (very) early beta release of my second prototype system as part of my PhD at MIT: HOPES AND DREAMS: The Future of Public Service http://72.167.189.5/Project/index.gsp?projectID=RAHS Click on the link above to share your thoughts and fears, hopes and ideas about the future of public services [...]
A DJ is not a conductor: Different design skills for different levels of complexity
March 8 10
Different levels of design complexity Peter Jones (@redesign) recently posted an excellent, considered conversation about different levels of design engagement, drawing on Richard Buchanan’s “Wicked Problems in Design” and GK VanPatter’s “four orders” of what we’re “designing for”. He links to a great (long) interview with GH VanPatter (of the NextDesign Leadership Institute), from which [...]
Futurescaper: Call for participation and design
February 19 10
Calling all futures nerds, scenario planning hackers and Web 2.0 strategy activists I need your help developing Futurescaper, a large scale participatory futures system for next generation governance and strategy making. This is a high functioning art project designed to prototype key elements of a crowd-sourced scenario planning approach to urban governance and design. The current [...]