As in the case of the Virginia Tech shooting that Viewig discusses, one of the largest advantages to online collaboration technologies on a large-group scale is the collective intelligence. When the normal mode of communication is compromised (in Viewig's case, it was the ability to talk with fellow classmates, since students stayed inside), technology can replace that role. For Virginia Tech, social networking sites such as Facebook served as a chief means of relaying communication.
An event that closely parallels this situation, though not as serious, that I have observed, in particular, occurs in online gaming. At times, servers for online games frequently go up and down, depending on traffic rates. This stops players from communicating normally (in the game, with their avatars). In addition, many online game players do not share contact information outside of the game, since correspondence in-game is frequent enough.
When a server goes down, however, players tend to flock to the forums to figure out the situation. The forums become a hub of collective intelligence, as players try to figure out which servers are working, which aren't, and when the ones that are down are planning to go up again - in other words, group problem solving. Information offered by players here is checked against official site announcements, or answers from game moderators themselves, who are figures of authority. This draws strong parallels to the facebook process of trying to ascertain a list of victims in the Virginia Tech shooting.
Collaborative technologies work best in cases like this largely because, I think, of a shared concern. Wikipedia, although also a massive collaborative technology project, has much more visitors to the site than actual contributors, because not everyone on the internet wants to share information. (It still works, just not as comprehensively in terms of population.) In the Virginia Tech case, the students were all concerned about fellow classmates or students, as well as for their safety. In the online gaming case, the players were all concerned about servers, because they were interested in their own gaming experience. When these concerns coincide, then collaborative technology can often be seen in use for group problem solving.
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This does seem like a good example, of course less severe as you mentioned. People do get really into gaming and if they all share the same concern like this people will really help each other out in figuring out what to do -- especially if getting the server to work again is also in their self-interest as it is in this case. There is a lot of motivation in your example for people to work together and technology really would be the only way to solve this problem.
ReplyDeleteThe use of collective intelligence is definitely evident in gaming, especially online gaming. Large communities where there are a collection of people who want to play games correctly, and want the best gaming experience possible definitely take collective intelligence to another level. There will be more people who are willing to inform other gamers, and help out when something goes wrong.
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