This presentation sketches a few projects and concepts that I'm interested in that illustrate potential opportunities for modeling civic intelligence for the common good.
1. Meanderings in Civic Intelligence Space
Collective Intelligence and the Common Good Workshop
September 29, 2014
London, UK
Douglas Schuler
douglas@publicsphereproject.org
2. Civic Intelligence (a theory)
Civic Intelligence is the capacity for people to work together to effectively and equitably address
our shared challenges. It is very similar to Collective Intelligence for the Common Good
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Civic intelligence puts the focus on our actual and potential ability to govern ourselves. More
importantly it looks at how we might diagnose and improve this ability.
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Civic intelligence can be compared with “crowd sourcing” and “smart cities” etc.
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Civic intelligence could be considered a Liberatory Theory — not just “rational”; used
diagnostically and aspirationally
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Possible articulation!
• Developing partnerships, diagnosis, evaluation
• I’m looking for metrics
• I also want to convincingly demonstrate the existence of civic intelligence in, say, a city
• Use with community groups and activists
• Promote comparative research with little (or no) coordination
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3. civic intelligence
capabilities Knowledge
Relational Capital
Organizational Capital
Attitudes and Aspirations
Attitudes and Aspirations
Financial and Material Resources
{
Civic Intelligence
Knowledge
Attitude &
aspirations
Civic purpose
Values
Financial &
Financial &
material resources
Personnel
Personnel
Leadership
Leadership
Diversity
Relational / social
Relational / social
Norms
capital
Norms
Solidarity
Values
material resources
Diversity
capital
Social imagination Land, space, &
Solidarity
Social imagination Land, space, &
Emotions and
empathy
Responsibility
Responsibility
Enthusiasm & self-efficacy
Financial assets
Information &
communication
technology
buildings
buildings
Tools & equipment
Updated: January 4, 2014
Facts, laws,
data, etc.
Salient
knowledge
Salient
knowledge
Skills or "applied
knowledge"
Skills or "applied
Searching &
monitoring
knowledge"
Searching &
monitoring
Learning and
meta-cognition
Learning and
meta-cognition
Access to
knowledge
Courage
Theory
Social critique
Computer models,
simulations, apps
Other resources
Organizational
capital
Organizational
structure
Work practices,
processes,
& habits
Work practices,
processes,
& habits
Creativity
Focus, timing,
& coordination
Creativity
Decision-making
Focus, timing,
& coordination
Decision-making
Access to resources
Social networks
Reputation
Opportunities
Issue & cultural fit
Planning,
acting,
evaluating
Timing
Team
Development
Time
Knowledge
Relational Capital
Organizational Capital
Financial and Material Resources
{
Civic Intelligence
Knowledge
Attitude &
aspirations
Civic purpose
Emotions and
empathy
Enthusiasm & self-efficacy
Financial assets
Information &
communication
technology
Tools & equipment
Updated: January 4, 2014
Facts, laws,
data, etc.
Access to
knowledge
Courage
Theory
Social critique
Computer models,
simulations, apps
Other resources
Organizational
capital
Organizational
structure
Access to resources
Social networks
Reputation
Opportunities
Issue & cultural fit
Planning,
acting,
evaluating
Timing
Team
Development
Time
4. Organization (a design challenge)
Because (1) Our collective intelligence must be adequate for the issues it needs to address; and
(2) All of our major problems will need to be addressed collectively, we need to think about
organization.
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What structures could be useful as we grow? Are some better suited for CI4CG? Networks of
networks? federations? scaling? fractal?
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What roles do norms (etc.) play? How these established and maintained?
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What advantages do formal organizations have?
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Speaking of that, I’d like to see us informal working groups or “clusters?” (see next slide)
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What coordination approaches could / should we employ?
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How do we intelligently grow, leverage our resources, and encourage diversity?
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We’re on our own! (to a large degree)
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Possible articulation!
• Forming informal clusters
• Developing frameworks
• Learning from our experience
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5. CIRAL (an educational project)
CIRAL is the Civic Intelligence Research and ActionLab at The Evergreen State
College. It’s now in its 4th year.
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Students in the lab work collaboratively (in small groups we call “clusters”) on
projects that they develop more-or-less themselves. The projects must use,
demonstrate, and cultivate civic intelligence. The projects can stretch over
several quarters.
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The students run the weekly meetings and publish a weekly “Fresh Sheet”
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While it might not work for all students, many of my students think it’s fantastic.
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Clusters in theory can be quite open (one year a fellow faculty colleague joined
one!)
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Possible articulation!
• Forming informal clusters in our community / network
• Our students can work with your students?
• Cluster idea applicable here?
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6. CIRAL
examples…
Disabled Veteran Village
To provide safe and stable housing and resources for
low-income disabled veterans who are committed to
returning to employment and/or independent living.
7. Intelligence (a concept)
Collective intelligence occurs when “individual” units (e.g. people) contribute to an
intelligent (effective and equitable) process.
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How much mileage can we get from looking at intelligence / cognitive functions in
individuals?
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Useful for integrating tools?
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Can we get any mileage out of looking at “discrete” aspects of intelligence — and
then connect them?
• perceiving
• discerning
• naming
• interpreting
• evaluating
• abstracting
• filtering
• reasoning about the
processes
• storing (memory 1)
• retrieval (memory 2)
• searching
• analogizing
• theorizing
• imagining
• arranging
• reconfiguring
• mashing up
• questioning
• hypothesizing
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• communicating
• formulating questions
• reasoning
• abstracting
• adapting
• problematizing
• weighing evidence
• judging
• arguing
• roles of emotion
8. Pattern Languages
(theory, method, practice)
A “pattern language” approach is used for organizing broad holistic knowledge
bases.
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Patterns are not recipes, but prompts or seeds; a pattern language is a collection of
patterns.
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Patterns are useful for collaboration, discussion, exploration. (But how do they get
turned into action?)
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We worked with 85 people to write Liberating Voices, a pattern language of 136
patterns
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We now have 136 pattern cards and a version in Spanish. Also, inspired on a
suggestion from a student we developed a set of 40 anti-patterns and designed
cards for them.
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Possible articulation!
• Needs methodology — particularly of patterns in production
• Work with community groups
• New domain(s) for pattern language development
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