Gold mine of Collective Intelligence

Hopefully it's no secret that I'm extremely passionate about collective intelligence, how it may be harnessed more effectively, where it's taking us, and how its related to the singularity.

When I've tried to explicitly google "collective intelligence," I've found some interesting pages, but I'm always left wanting something more. And then, wham, apparently out of the blue, I'll stumble on a vein of gold that takes me right to the mother lode. Usually this happens at 3am, when I can't sleep.

Like now.

This morning, mind active after the first day of work at Small World Labs, I reviewed some email threads, blog posts, etc., and then found this post on collective intelligence, by Nova Spivack (via James Burke's post/link on said topic).

If Nova's sidebar is any indication, that article is widely read: it's at the top of the list of featured articles. Second in line is this article about reciprocal links (Yes, Nova, if you are still reciprocating, I invite you to consider evaluating my blog for inclusion -- Thanks!).

I'm sitting here thinking, how weirdly, recursively holographic. James Burke, Connections superstar, is at the heart of a connection between me and the collective intelligence regarding the nature of connections and their relationship to collective intelligence!

Maybe it's just the early hour that has all of this seem so strange, but somehow I don't think so. My real question is, how can I get this kind of serendipity to happen more often? Why is a semi-random stroll through miscellaneous interests a more richly rewarding experience that the direct Google approach? And how can I harness this in the future?

I have mixed feelings about the reciprocal links programs, even when the links are deemed relevant and worthwhile. It feels a bit contrived, and frankly, if I go that route, I'm tempted just to copy Nova's list. That's doesn't seem to honor the spirit of the exercise.

Intuitively, it sure seems like a kind of emergent collective OPML cloud of feeds (at both blog and individual post levels) could be workable and powerful. Kind of like an Amazon-like recommendation engine propelling me into the heart of the highest density of feeds/posts that I like most.

There is the Web2.0Workgroup idea, where bloggers band together mutually, but I didn't find that particularly useful either; it didn't generate consistent gold-star connections (why not?).

More to consider here.

Comments

[james]

Actually i am not the old james burke from Connections fame, (although my dad gave me the same name probably as a consequence of being inspired by the original JB). I am only 35 yrs old...
Good to hear you found these articles on collective intelligence. Nova is working on some semantic web stuff in stealth mode, not heard a dikkie-bird from him. In the meantime there is a lot of work taking place going into building parts of this. A fun book to read also if you are into singularities is Charles Stross' Accelerando, a mindbogling sci-fi read!
J

[oppmind]

Hey James,

Thanks for the correction. After following your blog a bit more, plus your interest in Open Integral, I realized that you were a different Burke, though I believe you are on track to matching or exceeding the impact on the world of your namesake. Keep that light held high! Thanks,

- David