Social computing - a guide (the Blackboard "prior art" wikipedia page is a practical example)

The claimed benefits, especially for wikis, are that collaborative projects are accelerated, emails are hugely reduced, innovation happens through serendipitous connections, unnecessary barriers are broken down and the risks posed by leaving staff are reduced because their contributions remain.

This level-headed analysis from the 21/7/2006 Register in David Tebbut's IT manager's guide to social computing summarises the business uses of "social computing", and is the kind of thing to  show people who are turned off by terms like "Web 2.0".  It has an interesting set of links at the bottom of the second page.

Here is a practical - indeed stunning - example of how a wiki can aid knowledge management and creation - admittedly in circumstances in which a large number of people are exercised, and want to "do something":

The History of VLEs page on Wikipedia was started as a "stub" by Michael Feldstein on 29/7/2006 as a way of capturing "prior art" relating to Blackboard Inc.'s recently announced patent (see 26/7/2006 coverage in Fortnightly Mailing). Within 1 week over 300 additions and changes had been made to the page by a large number of named and un-named contributors. The page is getting on for being a definitive chronology, not that it is in any way polished. 

In pre-social-computing days, someone would have:

• offered to act as a collating-point  and editor for information;
• received large numbers of emails with diverse information;
• struggled to make sense of what they'd been sent;
• circulated and recirculated a document for comment;
• missed a lot of stuff out, and possibly become overwhelmed.

And there'd have been no opportunity for people who did not know about the process to contribute, nor for the material collected to be reviewed or challenged. In this instance, because of so many people's involvement in the process, and with a large number of blogs pointing to its URL, the History of VLEs page is close to the the top of Google's ranking for the search terms Virtual Learning Environment and VLE, ensuring that the knowledge, now captured, can be found easily, and, hopefully, worked on by others.

Of course this begs the question of whether, if what was being collected was more complicated than a chronology, things would have worked so effectively - in other circumstances an initial well-worked out heading structure would be absolutely essential.

And is Wikipedia the right "home" for a grass-roots effort of this kind?  If that issue interests you, see  the 3/8/2006 Knowledge, power, and mobilising a lobby through Wikipedia, by David Jennings (with whom I've worked from time to time). David's piece, and discussion thereof, quickly resulted in the History of VLEs wikipedia entry being peer reviewed by people "higher up" in the Wikipedia structure, a constructive and supportive process that is still continuing.

Comments

[George]

(I have commented similarly on Stephen's Web) As "Deepthroat" said, "Follow the money". Blackboard's major shareholders include Federated Investors, the Carlyle Group and Oak Hill Capital Partners. These firms are very close to the Whitehouse and are among the biggest corporate and individual donors to the Republican Party and the Bush family. Although I usually favour cock-up to conspiracy, the Bb patent skirmish is, maybe, an important little battle in the hearts-and-minds war. Read here. And, that "rural East Texas Jurisdiction" in which the suit against D2L was filed is, possibly, part of the game.

[Paul Maharg]

I think that the way Wikipedia is currently being developed, the general principle of your argument is pretty sound. And of course the idea of wikis as development tools -- almost like dynamic research notebooks -- is irresistible. Two issues. I'm with you on topics that are useful to (some) folk, or are important public interest topics (eg Bb prior art). There is of course a line to be drawn between public statement and private drafting for private audiences: the problem for a writer is often when to go public with one's addition to a stub or entry.

The other issue is raised by your helpful outline of what would have happened 'pre-social-computing days'. The most time-consuming stage is undoubtedly 'struggled to make sense of what they'd been sent', precisely because the communications pattern at this point is many drafts converging on one person. Whereas the social software version is many persons converging on one draft: much more efficient, and more focused on the text as object. One of the reasons why f2f drafting sessions can be inefficient is that the meeting itself (through social chat, intentions of writers ill thought-through, or clashing personalities) can be too person-focused rather than object-oriented.