In 2018, I came across a book called Superminds, “The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together,” by MIT professor Thomas Malone. As the founder of the School of Collective Intelligence at MIT, Mr. Malone forecasted how technology and people come together to create new kinds of entities.
This content was impressionable, so much that it inspired my vision. He described how man and machine create superior intelligence and how hyperconnectivity among people is a driver of this new problem-solving era.
A Stunning Picture of the Future
Superminds, the book, paints a striking and captivating picture of future work that will transform the ways we operate. By definition, a supermind is a group of different individuals completing different tasks related to an overall goal, i.e., new-age effective teamwork. The idea is that these groups will connect across a cyber-human system to boost their performance. According to Mr. Malone, a supermind is the same as a “collectively intelligent system.”
“And although it will probably happen more gradually than many people expect, artificially intelligent machines will amplify these superminds’ power by doing increasingly complex kinds of thinking.” — Thomas Malone
This hyperconnectivity Malone speaks of in his book is present in our day to day lives. Zoom recently surpassed what used to be the US’s most valuable company, Exxon Mobile, in market capitalization. It’s a testament to the post-COVID19, work from home era we’re in today. Using this to our benefit may not seem ideal when we’re coming up with new words like “Zoom-fatigue” to describe how exhausting meetings have become.
The Keys to Collective Intelligence
Can groups be intelligent in the same way individuals are? Yes, and there are three primary factors involved.
- The first is increasing the social perceptiveness of the group members (how to read body language and understand the unspoken behaviors of people).
- The second is equality and equal conversation (ensuring everyone has a fair and expressive voice in the group).
- The third are women; the groups with women are generally more collectively intelligent (women have higher emotional intelligence see #1).
Building upon the collective intelligence of your team is possible using social technologies. Everyone has equal representation inside a shared space; for us, it’s the reason why we created bundles. And now that understanding how to influence the supermind is available, you can initiate the insights when executing teamwork.
Sharing in this Work
Augmenting this intelligence comes with awareness, then the diversity of thought. As you work, consider the actions required of you to include others in the feedback loop of information. And examine how you could leverage machines to work with you to correlate data more meaningfully and faster than you ever could.
The future of work is an individual combined with an emotionally intelligent group combined with diversity of thought combined with machines’ processing power combined with artificial intelligence.
A < ABC < ABC123 < ABC123(++)
A = emotionally intelligent individual
ABC = emotionally intelligent group
123 = machine
(++) = artificially intelligence
bundleIQ, as a social technology, allows individuals to connect, communicate, and collaborate inside a shared space. Combined with AI, we create a cyber-human system underpinning Malone’s book principle, The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together.
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