William Dutton Oxford Internet Institute (OII) University of Oxford ox.ac.uk

1. Capturing the Value of Networked Individuals: Strategies for Citizen Sourcing William Dutton Oxford Internet Institute (OII) University of Oxford www.ox.ac.uk Presentation to ‘NETworked Organizations’, organized by SINTEF, at Kanonhallen, Oslo, Norway, 10 November 2010

2. The Wisdom of Crowds -- The many can outperform the few by: • statistical averaging of individual judgements – the Jury Theorem (Condorcet [1785]); • bringing the attention of more people – ‘eyeballs’ – to the problem; • aggregating information, intelligence, that is geographically distributed • enhancing diversity: bringing together more heterogeneous viewpoints, perspectives, and approaches; • simultaneous review rather than sequential processing, enabling more rapid diffusion of questions and answers; • avoidance of small group processes, such as ‘groupthink’; and • greater independence of, and less control by, established institutions.

3. Research Projects • The Performance of Distributed Problem-Solving Networks (DPSN), McKinsey Technology Initiative (MTI) and the Oxford Internet Institute (2007-8)http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/project.cfm?id=45 • The Oxford e-Social Science Project (OeSS), Economic and Social Research Council (2005-11) • The Fifth Estate Project, supported by the Oxford Internet Surveys (2003-2011), and June Klein, Electronic Boardroom™

4. The Question • Can organizations (governments) take advantage of the potential for the Internet to support distributed collaboration? • What strategies might enable organizations (governments) to exploit distributed problem-solving networks?

5. Electronic Networks of Expertise • The Emergency Management Information Systems And Reference Index (EMISARI) 1971 • PCs and Groupware, Group Decision Support • Citizen Consultation: QUBE Columbus, Ohio 1980s • Santa Monica’s Public Electronic Network (PEN) early-1990s

6. Case Studies of ‘Distributed Problem Solving Networks’ Case study What is it about? • News aggregators • Sermo • Seriosity • Different paradigms to find, rate, and prioritize news available online • Physicians sharing medical information • Use of multi-player game features to help prioritize use of e-mail and attention foci • Information markets • Aggregating judgments to predict public and private events • Atlas • ASOA • Firefox development • Simple Wikipedia • Designing and building a high energy physics (HEP) experiment • Financing and creating an Open Content Feature Film • Making an Open Source web browser “Mom-and-Dad” friendly • Improve readability of Wikipedia Source: OII

7. Collaborative Network Organizations • Wisdom of Crowds? • Reconfiguring Access: Networked Individuals v. Networked Institutions • Well Managed ‘Networked Individuals’ • Wisdom of Managing Networked Individuals: e.g. managing access, modularization of tasks, … • Distributed Problem-Solving Networks? - Problem Holders and Problem Solvers? - Solutions Looking for Problems - Ecology of Actors and Motivations • Collaborative Network Organizations (CNOs)

9. Understanding the Network Society • Networked Institutions • Networked Individuals

10. Networked Institutions v Networked Individuals • Networked Institutions, such as in e-Health • Networked Individuals: • going to the Internet for health and medical information • networking physicians via Sermo

11. Sermo

12. ASimpleTypology of CNOs Collaboration on documents, data, objects 1.0. Sharing: hypertextual • Atlas • Bugzilla • Innocentive 2.0. Contributing: hypertextual + user-generated • Digg News • Information Markets/ Prediction Markets • Seriosity • Sermo 3.0. Co-creating: hypertextual + user-generated + cooperative work • Firefox • Simple Wikipedia • Swarm of Angels

13. Management depends on Type of CNO

14. Collaborative Network Organizations • Wisdom of Crowds? • Reconfiguring Access: Networked Individuals v. Networked Institutions • Well Managed ‘Networked Individuals’ • Wisdom of Managing Networked Individuals: e.g. managing access, modularization of tasks, … • Distributed Problem-Solving Networks? - Problem Holders and Problem Solvers? - Solutions Looking for Problems - Ecology of Actors and Motivations • Collaborative Network Organizations (CNOs)

15. Reasons Why CNOs Can Succeed: Direct Communication with Diversity of Expertise Convening Power of Government Synergy with Citizen Consultation Building on Experience with Paid Consultants Speed and Urgency Centrality of Documents to Policy and Practice

16. Why Governments Will Avoid CNOs: Risk Aversion Concern over Levels of Participation Focus on Evidence-based Policy Gaming of Outcomes Revealing Problems or Strategies Loss of Control over Communication Concern over Civility Concern over Committing Politicians and Officials

17. Wider Conceptions of the Public: • Public as Citizens: Voters within a Constituency supported by e-consultation, Voting and Polling, … • Public as Advisors: Experts Distributed around the World

20. Strategies for Government Champions: Don’t reinvent the technology Focus on activities v tools, e.g., Web 2.0 Start small, but with scalable design Be flexible in where you go for expertise No one solution to all problems Cultivate bottom up development of projects Get colleagues involved in distributed collaboration Capture, reward and publicize best practice

22. Capturing the Value of Networked Individuals: Strategies for Citizen Sourcing William Dutton Oxford Internet Institute (OII) University of Oxford www.ox.ac.uk Presentation to ‘NETworked Organizations’, organized by SINTEF, at Kanonhallen, Oslo, Norway, 10 November 2010