Today in class, due to unfortunate circumstances, Young C. Lee was unable to share his presentation with the class. I was disappointed, but I think Andi and Howard Rheingold did a great job of penciling in for him. The focus of today's class was on collaboration and how it is becoming more a norm in our day to day lives.
Howard Rheingold began his speech talking about the rise of human competitiveness, and how it has created a rift in society. The history of man involves people competing with one another to come up with the better ideas. Thus, up until recently innovation and technological advancements were based primarily on the achievement of specific individuals. The point he makes is valid, if we look at the biggest technological advancements of mankind, it's usually just a certain individual that we think of. While, this method has worked for humans in the past, Rheingold argues that there is a better alternative on the rise...
The idea of humans working together, not individually, to solve problems and innovate new ideals, is the theory of collaboration that Rheingold advocates. Rheingold believes that human beings are at an advantage when they work together instead of separately. If we are willing to open ourselves up to others and share are ideas with others it can lead to a more rewarding and successful experience.
The reason that collaboration is on the rise, is due, to the recent explosion of technological advancements, specifically the internet and social media. Many of the primary social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), have allowed the theory of collaboration to flourish. The internet has enable communication between individuals across the globe, regardless of their geographic local. The internet is the great connector, it is has enabled us as a race of humans to come together. It is here where ideas, beliefs, and innovations come together and intermingle on a daily basis.
Opposition, to the theory of collaboration, is inevitable. There are always going to be those stubborn few who rally on about the potential negatives of collaboration. They will argue that collaboration causes too much "group think", there is no incentive for people to think for themselves because their ideas will by the masses, and no personal credit will be awarded. However, many notable companies, like Netflix, Apple, Google, etc. have begun to advocate the use of collaboration. These corporations are reaching out to the community, using various methods of social media. They want to know what people think. Are they doing things right? If not, then what do they need to approve upon. In some instances, they even look to their customers for the solution.
The example Andi shared in class, looked at how Netflix successfully developed a better recommender system. They decided to look to the community for the solution and offered a million dollar bounty to whoever developed a better algorithm than the one they currently used on the site. This trend is becoming more and more apparent in the business world, but also in the educational world, as well. It appears that collaboration is really the way of the future and instead of having one great mind to thank, we will now have many.
Collaboration in the modern world is essential to being a successful anything! In my field of Supply Chain Management, one must balance every aspect of inbound and outbound logistics to create a cohesive business plan. With collaboration through different medians like twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, people of different specialties can contribute to a larger process (the supply chain of products) and increases efficiency.
ReplyDeleteMore than social media, the impact of collaboration can be felt mostly in science and scientific fields. I feel that it is not stressed enough how important collaboration has been over the past few decades to make scientific discoveries that could not have been made without collaboration.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Kerry! Well summarized and elaborated.
ReplyDelete