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Doug Schuler
Rapporteur: Sharon Strover
Doug Schuler, Reinventing Social Thought and Action with Civic Intelligence: What type of digital transformation?
Doug Schuler introduced the concept of “civic intelligence” as a way to talk about desirable social digital transformation. After considering some alternative visions of the sorts of social changes that may emerge, he argued for a vision that blends activism with research, stating, “We’re doomed without it.” His perspective addressed (1) civil intelligence as an appropriate paradigm, (2) some examples of civic intelligence at work, and (3) the notion of a civic intelligence thought experiment.
After highlighting the growing number of social problems society faces, Schuler made a case for considering the question: “will we be smart enough soon enough?” as a preamble for civic intelligence. This organizing concept describes types of projects and for motivating and coordinating many efforts, and refers to how smart collectivities are solving their shared problems. His definition of civic intelligence includes these qualities:
• It is in evidence when groups work toward an explicit goal;
• Learning is involved;
• A group is mobilized around shared challenges;
• The group thinks and acts;
• The group engages in “metacognition – i.e., it thinks about its thinking;
• The group and its projects promote a critical orientation.
As he expanded on the concept of civic intelligence, Schuler argued that it exists throughout society, and it is a capacity that exists in all of society. Practical examples of civic intelligence at work included cases such as Sustainable Seattle, Wikileaks, and worldwide protests against the Iraq invasion by the U.S. The concept of civic intelligence can be structured as a paradigm that functions as a shared framework for identifying social problems and potential actions. Schuler argued that civic intelligence can function as a mode of collective problem solving.
Referring to his edited book Liberating Voices, Schuler ranged across several examples that illustrate how civic intelligence operates in a various participatory projects. The book is an effort to identify and catalogue how certain activities or actions of civic intelligence can be identified for their patterns or formulaic approaches. Even so, Schuler acknowledges explicitly that similar ideas take different courses in different settings. Finally, Schuler’s reference to a thought experiment suggests we consider how a full blown civic experiment might appear: what steps would be begin a meaningful project? How does social coordination occur?
The discussion of these ideas considered how metrics might operate in a civic intelligence framework: what locations have more or less civic intelligence? Is intelligence a “measurable” quality within communities as it might be among certain populations? What is the difference between simple civic action and civic intelligence? Schuler argued that we might consider the notion of civicness, pointing out that multiple systems can facilitate civic intelligence and that we need to think about effectiveness.
The issue of effectiveness and success in civic intelligence spawned a discussion around whether and how one can measure success. The example of how a social context conveys the values and holdovers from other (imposed) cultures was illustrated with reference to alternative expectations for handling money in a franchised environment (McDonalds) with strict employee rules versus a locally owned business operating within a framework of trust for employees. This reference to the context for measuring notion of success or effectiveness was, however, also challenged with reference to other systems in which the lack of metrics and definitions of success led to a “business as usual” environment in which change or improvement is impossible because the system never bothered to define success. Public broadcasting may offer an example of an environment in which “serving the public” has not been sufficiently examined in order to provide a sound metric to gauging success.
The need to show results has advantages and disadvantages – why should one resist a solid evaluation? MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence might have some useful material to help that discussion.
Is the idea of a “civic domain” sufficiently powerful and even contrary to the notion of a paradigm? If one’s definition of “civic” is too inclusive, then it does not function as a paradigm. On the other hand, sometimes a collective process is too chaotic to measure or apprehend. Additionally, are the premises of civic intelligence too enmeshed with web 2.0 tools? Other technologies such as cell phones also make important contributions to collective action. Should we be concerned that collective intelligence loses us in “the cloud,” that there is no more individual, bottom-up action?
In response to Schuler’s criticisms of Tim O’Reilly regarding web 2.0 tools as “harnessing” human intelligence, one participant pointed out that O’Reilly’s business orientation is simply a tools orientation – he is looking at these tools as a way to make money. Schuler pointed out that his primary concern is to reinfuse human values into the equation of assessing and valuing digital tools; the specific tools do not matter. Rather, what matters is an orientation that solicits and values human processes and interventions.
Rapporteur: Ben Moskowitz
Doug inaugurated the ISDT program in Porto on a light note, presenting an abbreviated list of current global crises. Financial systems are melting down. Climate change is accelerating. Day by day, fish stocks are depleted, and deforestation continues apace. Western societies are plagued by over-consumption and people in the developing world go to bed hungry. Ethnic cleansing, mental illness, weapons proliferation—Schuler didn’t waste any time getting down to business.
“Problems are growing a lot faster than solutions,” he said. “Will we be smart enough, soon enough?”
Schuler proceeded to present a framework for understanding the role information technologies play in repairing the world. “What type of digital transformation do we strive for? Could information technology be used as a common platform for motivating and coordinating a large number of projects?” If so, how might we measure its impact?
The key metric, argued Schuler, is “civic Intelligence.” How smart are collectivities in relation to their problems?
Civic intelligence recalls familiar concepts like social capital and organizational capacity. We know these things exist, but they’re subterranean—they shape outcomes but remain barely perceptible. How can we recognize and measure civic intelligence? One way is to examine citizen engagement and approaches to shared challenges. But building civic intelligence is never a discrete affair: it is a continuous process of adaptive learning and meta-cognition.