Collective Intelligence: Promoting Diversity, Crowd Performance Algorithms, and Better Decision Outcomes

Abstract

This document discusses a few versatile, tool-like crowd performance algorithms necessary for humans to employ internet technologies to make better decisions collectively. This document also readily acknowledges that true collective intelligence approaches are foremost about organizational culture change and encouraging shared group norms (i.e., values) of sharing, openness, transparency, and collaboration. Humans will need to buy-in to the approaches and technology tools for any collective intelligence approach to work. The scope of this document has two sections: The first section dives into some of the known theory and empirical evidence supporting a case that collective intelligence does, in fact, lead to better decision outcomes - specifically that collective intelligence employing recent advances in internet technologies can provide greater advantages than traditional organizational methods of making decisions. The second section takes these underpinnings and then extends them to consider a tool and associated crowd performance algorithms that could be coupled into a packaged generic system that serves as a staging ground for an organization to launch collective intelligence efforts. This discussion considers how different features would be aligned with desired human and organizational factors, as well as what outcomes could be expected from such a generic system approach.