With the advent of Web 2.0 tools, group collaboration is easier then ever and has reached an all time high. As Lohr (2009) states, the main idea in this type of collaboration, which he calls open-innovation, is getting as many people together as possible. Through this collaboration, the best and most creative ideas will emerge. The publishers of James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds (2004), have a Website on which the publishers have a Question and Answer session with the author:
There are four key qualities that make a crowd smart. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralized, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd's answer. It needs a way of summarizing people's opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks. (In response to “Under what circumstances is the crowd smarter?”)
However, Lohr (2009) goes to describe recent research in this topic as well as some clarifications that need to be made: “But a look at recent cases and new research suggests that open-innovation models succeed only when carefully designed for a particular task and when the incentives are tailored to attract the most effective collaborators.”
Lohr (2009) goes on to reference a million dollar offer (the contest is now closed) Netflix made for the contestant that could improve movie recommendations 10%. As can be seen on the leaderboard section of Netflix’s website (http://www.netflixprize.com//leaderboard), there are two contestants that passed this mark. Netflix will be publishing the results very shortly. Both of these contestants are not one person, but groups. One of the contending groups, BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos, consists of seven experts in the fields of statistics, machine learning, and computer engineering from four different countries. However, all of the members are experts in their fields and their fields are relevant to the goal of writing an algorithm to improve movie recommendations. This group is a combination of three groups.
The other group, The Ensemble, is also a merger of multiple other groups that banned together to compete with BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos. This shows the amount of collaboration that occurred on part of the all of these groups. A rather large number of people, who once formed multiple groups, combined to make two groups. This would not have been possible without the Internet and modern tools (Lohr, 2009). This is but one example of how the Internet and Web 2.0 tools can help collaboration and the creation of new and meaningful ideas. Open-innovation and group work yields excellent results, but only if the group members are working hard towards a common goal and are educated in the subject matter. Web 2.0 tools assist the formation of groups with people from multiple countries and geographic locations that could never have collaborated meaningfully and easily before.
Lohr, S. (2009, July 18). The crowd is wise (when it’s focused). The New York Times. Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/technology/internet/19unboxed.html
The wisdom of crowds: Q & A with James Surowiecki. (2004). Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/Q&A.html
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