apcampbell

An article in the Harvard Business School publication Working Knowledge (via elearningpost) reports that the “that the approaches and outcomes of cooperating groups are not just better than those of the average group member, but are better than even the group’s best problem solver functioning alone.”

While this is no surprise, I can’t help but wonder about the nature of cooperation in decentralized, distributed communicative environements like the ones we’re using now. Unlike in an institutional setting, where cooperative groups are purposely created to solve specific problems, cooperation on the internet seems to arise naturally via mutual interest. Since personal webpublishers are acting with their own purposes and goals in mind, the extent to which any given group of people would cooperate on specific problems is bound to fluctuate, both in quantity and quality of interaction. Although distributed cooperative relationships may not experience the same level of commitment as specifically designed groups would, the potential for multiple perspectives to arise on any given issue seems immense, assuming that a significant number of people are using the technology in appropriate ways to meet their needs. As internet communications evolve and the barriers to access are removed in tandem with ease of use, perhaps there will be more people writing (or speaking!) about myraid issues; enough to make the ocean of available perspectives large enough to make this kind of distributed cooperation possible on topics other than politics, blogging, and software.
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