Collective Intelligence in Philanthropy by @eekim - with wider relevance June 18, 2011
A great explanation of the benefits of collaboration - written for philanthropists - but there are useful insights even if you don't have masses of money to give away.
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Collective Intelligence in Philanthropy
(snip)
The basic premise underlying collective intelligence is simple. Sometimes, somehow, groups exhibit intelligence that far exceeds the sum of its parts. Ants are a great example of this. Individually, ants are – quite frankly – dumb. They do three things well:
- They carry heavy objects
- They leave trails
- They follow trails
(snip)
The problem is that it’s hard for humans to act like ants, because unlike ants humans are smart individually. Perhaps smarter than is good for us. The way we like to attack problems is exactly the opposite of how ants attack problems. We like to centralize control. We like to understand problems to completion – or at least pretend we do – before attempting to address them. This is exactly the opposite of what we need to do to be successful.
more at http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2011/06/collective-intelligence-in-philanthropy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TacticalPhilanthropy+%28Tactical+Philanthropy%29
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