Collective Intelligence – Page 5 – Public Intelligence Blog

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist “A People's History of the United States” became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and a favorite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday. He was 87.

Zinn died of a heart attack in Santa Monica, Calif., daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn said. The historian was a resident of Auburndale, Mass.

Published in 1980 with little promotion and a first printing of 5,000, “A People's History” was — fittingly — a people's best-seller, attracting a wide audience through word of mouth and reaching 1 million sales in 2003. Although Zinn was writing for a general readership, his book was taught in high schools and colleges throughout the country, and numerous companion editions were published, including “Voices of a People's History,” a volume for young people and a graphic novel

Phi Peta Iota: Click on the photo for the full story. We take exception to the labeling of Howard Zinn as “left wing.” He was neither left nor right, he was honest, and that is not something one can say about either of the two political parties that exclude half the eligible voters from the process and that loot the treasury on behalf of special interests. It is truly a terrible indictment of society when truth-tellers are labeled in any manner

Fedor Dostoevsky: A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else.

2010/01/202011/04/08

Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Tom Atlee

Alpha A-D, Collective Intelligence

Tom Atlee is a social change pioneer and visionary, author of The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World that Works for All and founder of the nonprofit Co-Intelligence Institute http://co-intelligence.org. The book below would not have been possible without his identification and encouragement of many of the pioneers who helped create the book, which then allowed the editor to attract additional leaders in the field to contribute to this collective endeavor.

People's Preface

Phi Beta Iota: Tom Atlee is arguably the single most influential “spirit” in convergence that is occurring as we begin the second decade of the 21st Century. Click on Atlee to see his many listings on this site. His most recent work, Reflections on Evolutionary Activism, is one of a handful of revolutionary reflections pertinent to the urgent need for massive non-violent social change today.

2010/01/102011/02/13

Who’s Who in Earth Intelligence: Leonardo Bonnani

Alpha A-D, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Gift Intelligence

Leo is a doctoral candidate at the MIT Media Lab, a designer and an artist. He teaches the MIT class Future Craft: Radical Sustainability in Product Design on the social aspects of mass design. You can also find his blog, photos, and videos. To find out more and for contact information, download his resume.

PhD Thesis Proposal: “A Collective Approach to Sustainable Design”

SourceMap.org visible supply chains

Phi Beta Iota: We are deeply inpressed by this individual, who crosses harnesses Collective Intelligence to achieve Commercial Value in both Cultural and Earth contexts. His idea is infinitely scalable, infinitely valuable, and applicable to every single product and service on the planet, ultimately to included planned giving at the item level.

2009/12/162011/10/22

Journal: Dean Breaks with Obama, Third Party Rumbles

07 Health, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Open Government

Dean says kill the Senate health bill: report

Dean tells Good Morning America that he thinks health bill should be scrapped: Video at bottom

WASHINGTON — Following the jettisoning of both the public option and the Medicare buy-in provision, one of the nation's leading progressive voices on health care reportedly said Tuesday that the Senate bill is no longer worth supporting.

Phi Beta Iota: Buried within the comments “Howard Dean with Cynthia mckinney, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader would be a good group to get a real third party going. ” We add as a non-partisan observation that the principal figures representing the 70% of America that did not vote for the current Administration have failed to come together. Between Howard Dean and Joe Lieberman the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party may be finding that Sarah Palin and Ron Paul are looking a lot more reasonable. Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, and Jackie Salit have the power–not yet exercised–to bring America together on the ONE THING we can all agree on: the Electoral Reform Act of 2010.

2009/10/052010/09/20

Reference: Russell Ackoff on Doing Right Things Righter

About the Idea, Alpha A-D, Articles & Chapters, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Historic Contributions, Reform

Phi Beta Iota: Government is broken. Ron Paul has that exactly right. It is broken for two reasons: first because over time those spending the money have grown distant from those providing the money, the individual taxpayers, AND from reality. The second reason it is broken is because knowledge itself has become fragmented, and “systems thinking” has fallen by the wayside.

Below are three quotes from a tremendous reference of lasting value to every citizen and policymaker.

ONE: Reformations and transformations are not the same thing. Reformations are concerned with changing the means systems employ to pursue their objectives. Transformations involve changes in the objectives they pursue.

TWO: The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. This is very significant because almost every problem confronting our society is a result of the fact that our public policy makers are doing the wrong things and are trying to do them righter.

Continue reading “Reference: Russell Ackoff on Doing Right Things Righter”

2008/12/312009/09/06

Definitions: Emerging Taxonomy for Collective Intelligence

Collective Intelligence, Definitions

A converstion is developing that will lead to a taxonomy for collective intelligence in all its forms, including public intelligence. Below is a first effort by Tom Atlee that decisively corrects our preliminary conclusion that public intelligence was the umbrella term.

Dear Robert,

I guess I'm stuck on what seems to me the straight-forward simplicity of “collective intelligence” as the overall category — as the intelligence capacity of any collective — family, group, organization, community, society, culture, network — they're all collectives (at least in my sense of the word). “Intelligence capacity” includes things like problem-solving, pattern recognition, analytic or integral model-making, learning (knowledge-building and revision), application of knowledge, insight, etc. — anything and everything having to do with engaging successfully with the patterns of reality. The different types of intelligence have diverse gifts to offer — different types of cognition needed to deal with certain types of patterns — e.g., Gardner's seven “multiple intelligences” (including emotional intelligence), on the one hand, or “business intelligence” and “street smarts” on the other. In this definition, at this level, I find “collective intelligence” to be totally embracive of the requisite diversity, and the term “public intelligence” to be awkward, at best (public as opposed to private?).

However, there's a whole ‘nother framing from which to view this, which I sense is your “home base” — “the craft of intelligence (as in “intelligence agency”). I see the “craft of intelligence” (as a specific sub-category of the broader CAPACITY of intelligence, in this case focused on the collective practice of gathering, sorting, organizing, and analyzing data into useful patterns (information, understanding, narratives, meaning) for decision-makers. With this definition, at this level, the term “public intelligence” means to me the publicly visible and highly participatory practice of doing that for democratic decision-makers who, in the fullest democratic sense, includes or is the public, itself (the citizenry), who are practicing intelligence to inform their own empowered decision-making.

So public intelligence is, for me, a subset of collective intelligence. Much of my “wise democracy” work can be squeezed into the “public intelligence” category. But I have also framed collective intelligence more broadly and think of my larger work as being largely involved with that broader category.

“Co-intelligence” is a larger category still, involving the interactive, collaborative intelligence of the whole (which can be a group, but it can also be an event, nature, evolution, the universe, or Spirit).
I hope that's useful, at least in terms of where to place me in the weave you're creating…

Co-heartedly,Tom

We urge one and all to support Tom Atlee's gentle intelligent efforts to restore the Collective Intelligence that is inherent in humanity as a Whole. Visit him at the Co-Intelligence Institute and make your donation there, please.

2008/12/252013/04/04

Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Stephen E. Arnold

Alpha A-D, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence

Stephen E. Arnold is an independent consultant. He's the author of The Google Legacy: How Search Became the New Application Platform, the first three editions of the Enterprise Search Report, and Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator. His work has been distributed by Bear Stearns and Outsell Inc. This information is based on research for this forthcoming study, Beyond Search: What to Do When Your Search System Doesn't Work, Gilbane Group, 2008. His Web site is www.arnoldit.com.

Search panacea or ploy:
Can collective intelligence improve findability?

Category: Collective Intelligence

Rememberance: ‘People’s History’ Author Howard Zinn Dies at 87