Slides used in the Level 2 Cyberculture lecture on mass collaboration. some formatting errors have occurred in the upload. Supporting blog post: http://www.remedialthoughts.com/2009/03/era-of-mass-collaboration.html
2. Overview
1. Tradi<onal forms of collabora<ve ac<on
2. New forms of collabora<on
3. Case study 1: IBM and Linux
4. Case study 2: Encyclopaedia Britannica and
Wikipedia
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3. 1: Tradi3onal forms of collabora3ve ac3on
20th century
•
Large scale projects
•
Typically hierarchical
•
Top‐down model
•
Typically state or market led
•
– (see Shirky, 2008)
3
5. Government
steering group
Project lead
(eg IBM)
DVLA Passports HMCR NI
NHS
Consultants Consultants Consultants Consultants Consultants
Doc control Doc control Doc control Doc control Doc control
Tech roll out Tech roll out Tech roll out Tech roll out Tech roll out
Test Test Test Test Test
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18. • ‘Over <me an informal organiza<on
emerged to manage ongoing development
of the somware that con<nues to harness
inputs from thousands of volunteer
programmers. Because it was reliable and
free, Linux became a useful opera<ng
system for computers hos<ng Web servers,
and ul<mately databases, and today many
companies consider Linux an enterprise
somware keystone’
– Tapsco1 & Williams, 2008: 24
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20. The power of the crowd?
• IBM spends about $100 million per year on
Linux development.
• If Linux community puts in $1 billion of effort
and even half of that is useful to IBM
customers, the company gets $500 million of
somware development for their ini<al
investment
– Tapsco1 & Williams, 2008: 83
20
23. Added ‘wiki’ somware to Nupedia site
•
Invented by Ward Cunningham in 1995
•
Much faster to post and edit ar<cles
•
Nupedia advisory board rejected it
•
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25. Collabora3ve produc3on
• “Why do people play somball? It’s fun, it’s a
social ac<vity … We are gathering together to
build this resource that will be made available
to all the people of the world for free. That’s a
goal people can get behind.”
– Jimmy Wales cited in Tapsco1 & Williams, 2008:
72
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29. • 21st century is the era of mass
collabora<on
• Collabora<on benefits business
and culture alike
• The crowd is a resource?
• Democra<sing force?
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31. Sources and reading
• Digital Britain report, January 2009,
h1p://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcas<ng/5631.aspx
• Jeff Howe, 2008, Crowdsourcing: How the Power of the Crowd is Driving
the Future of Business, London: Random House Business Books.
• Andrew Keen, 2008, The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is
killing our culture and assaulAng our economy, London: Nicholas Brearly
Publishing
• Charles Leadbe1er 2008, We‐Think: Mass innovaAon, not mass‐
producAon, London: Profile Books Ltd.
• Clay Shirky, 2008: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing
Without OrganizaAons, London: Allen Lane.
• James Surowiecki, 2005, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are
Smarter Than the Few, London: Abacus.
• Don Tapsoc1 & Anthony D. Williams, 2008, Wikinomics: How Mass
CollaboraAon Changes Everything, London: Atlan<c Books
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