Swarm Leadership

describe how to communicate to bring together groups of people to innovate

The goal is to describe how to communicate to bring together groups of people to innovate. Better communication leads to better collaboration, which leads to more innovation. The information stored in a single neuron in the brain only becomes meaningful through the massively parallel network of connecting axons and synapses. This is no different for thousands of human brains, which can only work together to innovate by communicating with each other in the best possible way.

Chapter 3 discusses how the four principles of social quantum physics empower and create collective consciousness. It describes how social entanglement is created through the theory of mind. The theory of mind, enabled by mirror neurons, corresponds to the quantum physics wave-particle duality. By nurturing empathy, the theory of mind gets us to collaborate more closely, leading to entanglement. Social quantum physics also explains how the future redefines the past, by applying the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: if a social system is measured, and the measurements are mirrored back to the participants, it triggers their self-reflection; the participants will change through reinterpretation of the past, leading to an internal reboot.

Chapter 4 introduces the three phases of building your swarm, starting out with the Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs), small groups of self-organizing, emergent team members collaborating over the Internet. COINs are leading to larger groups of people, the Collaborative Learning Network (CLN), whose members are testing the prototypes of the COIN, and the Collaborative Interest Network (CIN) whose members are spreading the word about the cool products of the COIN. The concept of COINs has been introduced in my earlier book Swarm Creativity; this chapter gives a brief overview of the core ideas.

Chapter 5 discusses the six honest signals of collaboration. They are calculated by mining all sorts of communication archives such as e-mail, phone logs, Twitter, and blogs, or tracking direct interaction though sociometric badges worn on the body. Strong leadership, balanced contribution, rotating leadership, responsiveness, honest sentiment, and shared context make collaboration effectiveness and efficiency measurable.

Chapter 6 introduces the five laws of ethical collaboration. Transparency, fairness, honesty, forgiveness, and listening are the five key axioms that will lead to more collaborative teams, where self-motivated team members work together on the issues they really are passionate about.

Chapter 7 shows how we move from competition toward collaboration, both of them inseparably linked like yin and yang. It describes how competitive and collaborative behaviors can be combined to channel our competitive energies toward better collaboration. It discusses the concepts of competitive collaboration — think musical orchestra — and collaborative competition — think two sports teams competing-illustrating it with practical examples.

Chapter 8 illustrates what this means for the individual. It shows how each of us can apply the principles described in this book to become a happier, more creative, and successful instigator of our own swarm. It explains how transactive memory allows each individual to access the accumulated knowledge of humankind through the Internet, educating collaborative and creative “renaissance humans.” It also introduces a first version of a course to educate “renaissance humans,” the COINs seminar that brings together global virtual teams of students to solve complex collaborative tasks, providing a blueprint for becoming a member of a collaboratively creative swarm.