I have been working or part of many institutions or collective processes. I would say every 2 years I have experienced a new institutional settings at least during the past 15 years. There are institutions who care about the people working on them, who has a soul that connects with yours, and make you feel loved, supported and appreciated. And there are institutions in which the moments of frustration are very frequent, as well as the occasions to feel to be discriminated, or that there is lack of understanding of your values. I would say some of this has to do with the connection with you (and what you represent (being young, women, regarding your origins, etc), but also with the stage of the collective process and the “personality” of the community as a whole. I arrived to the conclusion that gender policy is of great relevance in explaining this, not only regarding women situation, but in setting up the overall community caring framework/personality. However, the importance of gender policy is not pointed out frequently, while the level of resources, or presence of key individuals is to me overrated.

Recently Science and PLOS published a couple of studies (links below) that in certain degree point to similar directions. Groups which are more participative, dialogue oriented and with more women (linked to great empathy capacity) result in higher collective intelligence. Plus, this no matter if the groups engages online or offline.

So, when choosing where to put your energies considering the atmosphere of collective caring and participation, and the gender approach might be good criteria – for everyone not only for women -. Others and you might feel more appreciated and the whole process might be more intelligent and effective.

What others think about these results?

Mayo

Authors reporting at NYT

Studies:

Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups. By Anita Williams Woolley, Christopher F. Chabris, Alex Pentland, Nada Hashmi, Thomas W. Malone. Science 29 October 2010 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6004/686

Reading the Mind in the Eyes or Reading between the Lines? Theory of Mind Predicts Collective Intelligence Equally Well Online and Face-To-Face. By David Engel, Anita Williams Woolley, Lisa X. Jing, Christopher F. Chabris, Thomas W. Malone. PLOS One Dec 2014 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0115212

Here links to my work in Power Law in English and Spanish, in several formats.
* SHORT BLOG POST IN SPANISH at Eldiario.es

http://www.eldiario.es/interferencias/Participacion-_Formas_organizativas_emergentes-_Organizacion_en_red-_Ley_de_potencias_6_205839432.html

* LONG ARTICLE IN ENGLISH: Comparison of power law at Wikipedia from power law at the European social forum platform.
Fuster Morell, M (2010). Participation in Online Creation Communities: Ecosystemic Participation?. Conference Proceedings of JITP 2010: The Politics of Open Source (p. 270-295). Retrieved from http://scholarworks.umass.edu/jitpc2010/1

Similar comparison but in Spanish.

Fuster Morell, M. (2011) ¿La participación como ecosistema?comunidades de creación online parra la construcción de bienes públicos digitales. En A. Calle Democracia radical: entre vínculos y utopías. (págs. 129-148) Icaria: Barcelona. ISBN 978-84-9888-330-5 MFM_PowerLaw_AngelCalle

* CHAPTER THESIS IN ENGLISH: Based on four cases comparition (Wikipedia, Social Forums, Flickr and Wikihow)
VI. Participation in online creation communities’ platforms: http://www.onlinecreation.info/outline_design

* POWER POINTS:

Slides presentation “Comparison of Wikipedia, 15M and Sopa Campaign. 11 hypothesis to explain power law and its democratic meaning”. Power Law Power Point MFM

This power point in Spanish.

Slides presentacion “Significado de las leyes de potencias en el espacio publico en red: Wikipedia, 15M, SOPA” Barcelona. Seminario P2P15M. Barcelona, 4 de Julio 2013.  15MP2P_MayoFusterMorell

El 5 de Junio tuve el placer de participar en una sesión de Think Commons. Tal como se define en la web, Think Commons es “una plataforma de pensamiento en red. Un entorno transmedia que promueve el debate y genera conocimiento sobre procomún, creación colectiva, colaboración, cultura libre y open government. Think Commons es un Ambient Intelligence Network, es decir un entorno social que reproduce las condiciones necesarias para construir una comunidad de personas que interactúan y se reconocen como actores de la misma. Un transmedia que sirve de entorno híbrido, que se mueve de un medio a otro y supera la dicotomía entre lo físico y lo digital para crear una nueva dimensión de conexión glocal entre personas, con el intercambio de opiniones sobre temas concretos como base. Se estructura entorno a sistemas abiertos y ligeros que encuentran en la construcción de redes de personas su recurso más valioso (Network Thinking)”. Think Commons lo dinamiza – muy sabiamente – Dominico Di Siena @urbanohumano Continue reading →