But I will nevertheless make a humble effort here to clear a bit of fog as I am no horror fiction writer who wants readers to be at the edge of their seats before the next post . I doubt collaboration will aid in that as much as sex and violence will .

The collaboration I have mentioned here is a concept which should not be confused with collaborative software . Collaboration is a broad idea that enables technology as you have rightly pointed out. The move towards decentralization may sound utopian especially with time critical and high impact areas of application such as health care and government intel unless it has a Trusted space like you mentioned . These will be covered in detail on a case by case analysis in following posts that will make the point clearer.

The concept of collective intelligence and brains on the network is stressed in the post mainly because of the levels of individuality that are maintained within the cohesive effort in spite of having a common task and objective . This is probably not a counter point but still not a direct corollary either of the Wisdom of Crowds as in the combines effort is far more impactful than summation of individual efforts . Having said that , it is mainly because of the necessity to retain unique individual identity in order to be more productive and avoid redundant circulation of data . So , it is collective and not connected intelligence .

Regarding the prospects of reverse institutionalization , I presume I should have made it clearer that although the tendency is to randomize , the move is towards decentralization and not an elimination of a controlling framework . A specification of a picture frame to resist the canvas needs to be well defined with a few implementations towards this direction being made by organizations which have emphasized “self motivation” and “ownership” ideals but that does not exclude the fact that even if the film is made , written and acted by people within the cast, there still is a need for a director behind the camera to overlook how the projection of the story will be and how it will shape into a full featured movie.

I do not boldly assume I have answered all the questions but I presume I have set a base so as to know what to expect as clarifications from subsequent posts .

At its most basic level, the wisdom of crowds — let’s call it WOC, so I don’t have to type as much — means that the aggregated thought and knowledge of thousands or millions of people can be smarter than trained individual experts.

The WOC has been around forever — it’s what democratic elections try to tap into. But the Net takes it to a whole new level. “The Internet provides a mechanism to get lots of diverse opinions and aggregate it in a quick and cost-effective way,” Surowiecki tells me.

So if a company can use the Net to tap the collected intelligence of its employees, the employees will make better decisions than the CEO. IBM, Google and others have tried this. Wikipedia, written and edited by tens of thousands of unpaid contributors, should be better than an encyclopedia written and edited by specialists. News sites such as Digg, which lets users vote stories to the front page, should surface the best stuff more effectively than professional editors.

Except it doesn’t always work that way. Pointing specifically at Wikipedia, Lauren Weinstein of the People for Internet Responsibility says that the Net has propagated a “basic fallacy that a wisdom-of-crowds approach could ever work, even theoretically.”

Also – another question – “Connected” or “Collective” intelligence? The distinction between groups and networks. Groups require unity, networks require diversity. Groups require coherence, networks require autonomy. Groups require privacy or segregation, networks require openness. Groups require focus of voice, networks require interaction. The group I am with right now is very intent on being a group. That doesn’t interest me. I have no wish to lose my identity and my freedom, my empowerment. Because a group is subject to this very objection – backlash, groupthink, the works. But a network is not.

Will wait for the next round…