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

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.

• 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™

Research Projects

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?

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

Case study

• News aggregators

• Sermo

• Seriosity

• Information markets

• Atlas

• ASOA

• Firefox development

• Simple Wikipedia

Source: OII

Case Studies of ‘Distributed Problem Solving Networks’

What is it about?

• 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

• Aggregating judgments to predict public and private events

• 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

• 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)

Collaborative Network Organizations

Understanding the Network Society

• Networked Institutions

• Networked Individuals

Networked Institutions, such as in e-Health

Networked Individuals:

going to the Internet for health and medical information

networking physicians via Sermo

Networked Institutions v Networked Individuals

Sermo

A Simple Typology of CNOs

Collaboration on documents, data, objects

1.0. Sharing: hypertextual

2.0. Contributing: hypertextual + user-

generated

3.0. Co-creating: hypertextual + user-generated

+ cooperative work

• Atlas • Bugzilla • Innocentive

• Digg News• Information Markets/

Prediction Markets• Seriosity • Sermo

• Firefox• Simple Wikipedia• Swarm of Angels

Management depends on Type of CNO

1.0 Sharing 2.0 Contributing 3.0 Collaborating

Architecture One to many Many to many Many to one

Openness and Control

Open, Low Control

Managing access Tiering, management control structures

IPR Information shared

Platform Co-created product

Performance Viewers Quantity of Contributors

Engaging targeted experts, producers

• 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)

Collaborative Network Organizations

Reasons Why CNOs Can Succeed:

1. Direct Communication with Diversity of Expertise

2. Convening Power of Government

3. Synergy with Citizen Consultation

4. Building on Experience with Paid Consultants

5. Speed and Urgency

6. Centrality of Documents to Policy and Practice

Many Reasons to Avoid CNOs:

1. Risk Aversion

2. Concern over Levels of Participation

3. Quality: Focus on Evidence-based Policy

4. Gaming of Outcomes

5. Revealing Problems or Strategies

6. Loss of Control over Communication

7. Concern over Civility

8. Concern over Committing Politicians and Officials

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

Citizens Opinion Experts Advice

Engaging Networked Individuals

Citizen Consultation, Polling, ePetitions

Distributed Intelligence through Collaborative Network Organizations

Individuals, Interest Groups and Lobbies

Meetings, Hearings, Letters, Petitions, Elections

Paid Consultants, Representatives of Interest Groups

Strategies for Government Champions:

1. Don’t reinvent the technology

2. Focus on activities v tools, e.g., Web 2.0

3. Start small, but with scalable design

4. Be flexible in where you go for expertise

5. No one solution to all problems

6. Cultivate bottom up development of projects

7. Get colleagues involved in distributed collaboration

8. Capture, reward and publicize best practice

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