A team comprised of senior members from Shared Insights, Wharton, MIT, and Prentice Hall are launching an interesting project related to the power of communities. (We are Smarter than Me)
The central premise is that large groups of people can, and should, take responsibility for traditional business functions that are currently performed by companies, industries and experts. And, they're going to test the concept by writing a book as a community.
Using a wiki model, combined with discussion forums and a live conference in March 2007, an open invitation has been extended for contributors to edit or author significant content in each of the chapters. The chapters currently stem from 16 identified challenges ranging from exploring whether or not a community can write a book to exploring social behaviors needed to achieve community interaction.
I thought, well, this is an opportunity I just couldn't pass up. It wasn't much more than about a week ago that I posted an idea like this in a thread of one of the online forums I subscribe to at Xing. (Re: Need opinion on my business networking idea). And then, to see a project that's attempting to tackle just that issue not more than a week later was something I just had to check out.
For me, I don't come down on the side that may claim groups are predisposed to being better than individuals. I personally think group decisions are inherently prone to inaction and chaos. But before I get strung up by purists, I need to quickly add the caveat of structure and leadership.
My hypothesis is that all group start with great potential. But to actually realize the value of that potential, a set of ground rules have to be in place to which each member agrees to be bound. And, those rules should have a structure that moves things along. At the end of that progression is a result. Having said that, ground rules aren't enough. There also needs to be a leader/facilitator or governing body that -- I was about to say 'enforces,' but that's not the right word -- encourages (?) willful compliance of each member to those rules.
That's what I'm looking forward to discovering by being part of this venture. What those ground rules are and how they're 'encouraged' so that we end up with a slick package at the end of the day.
The book will be published for sale in the Fall of 2007. What's more, rather than just being a vehicle for testing an idea, there's also an altrusistic component. Proceeds from the sale will go to a charity or charities that, what else?, the community votes on.
I'll post updates here.
