The Rise of Collective Intelligence: Decentralized Co-Creation of Value as a New Paradigm of Commerce and Culture

Abstract

"Every year, the Information Technology Roundtable of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program examines a timely issue that is posing perplexing new challenges for business, culture and society. In 2007, the gathering met to explore the many ways in which network-based communities are becoming socially and economically significant. The phenomenon has been called 'decentralized co-creation of value' — the process by which social communities and loose networks of people use Web 2.0 platforms to generate useful new types of collective intelligence. Although the value that is created tends to be social in origin, it has far-reaching economic implications for business and nations. Online communities are often rich sources of innovative ideas, specialized knowledge, timely and sophisticated market intelligence and niche consumer demand. Moreover, because this decentralized value-creation is occurring online - and therefore is widely available — it is capable of diffusing rapidly and disrupting entrenched institutions and societal practices."