Douglas Schuler

Meanderings in Civic Intelligence Space

douglas@publicsphereproject.org

Collective Intelligence and the Common Good Workshop September 29, 2014

London, UK

Civic Intelligence (a theory)Civic Intelligence is the capacity for people to work together to effectively and equitably address our shared challenges. It is very similar to Collective Intelligence for the Common Good !Civic intelligence puts the focus on our actual and potential ability to govern ourselves. More importantly it looks at how we might diagnose and improve this ability. !Civic intelligence can be compared with “crowd sourcing” and “smart cities” etc. !Civic intelligence could be considered a Liberatory Theory — not just “rational”; used diagnostically and aspirationally !Possible articulation!• Developing partnerships, diagnosis, evaluation • I’m looking for metrics • I also want to convincingly demonstrate the existence of civic intelligence in, say, a city • Use with community groups and activists • Promote comparative research with little (or no) coordination !

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civic intelligence capabilitiesKnowledge

Relational Capital

Organizational Capital

Financial and Material Resources

Attitudes and Aspirations

{

Civic Intelligence

Knowledge Attitude & aspirations

Civic purpose

Emotions and empathy

Values

Enthusiasm & self-efficacy

Responsibility

Financial assets

Information & communication

technology

Tools & equipment

Social imagination Land, space, & buildings

Updated: January 4, 2014

Financial & material resources

Facts, laws, data, etc.

Access to knowledge

Skills or "applied knowledge"

Learning and meta-cognition

Searching & monitoring

Salient knowledge

Courage

Theory

Social critique

Computer models, simulations, apps

Other resources

Organizational capital

Organizational structure

Access to resources

Diversity

Personnel

Creativity

Leadership

Work practices, processes,

& habits

Decision-making

Focus, timing, & coordination

Social networks

Reputation

Norms

Opportunities

Issue & cultural fit

Relational / social capital

Solidarity

Planning, acting,

evaluating

Timing

Team Development

Time

KnowledgeRelational Capital

Organizational Capital

Financial and Material Resources

Attitudes and Aspirations

{

Civic Intelligence

Knowledge Attitude & aspirations

Civic purpose

Emotions and empathy

Values

Enthusiasm & self-efficacy

Responsibility

Financial assets

Information & communication

technology

Tools & equipment

Social imagination Land, space, & buildings

Updated: January 4, 2014

Financial & material resources

Facts, laws, data, etc.

Access to knowledge

Skills or "applied knowledge"

Learning and meta-cognition

Searching & monitoring

Salient knowledge

Courage

Theory

Social critique

Computer models, simulations, apps

Other resources

Organizational capital

Organizational structure

Access to resources

Diversity

Personnel

Creativity

Leadership

Work practices, processes,

& habits

Decision-making

Focus, timing, & coordination

Social networks

Reputation

Norms

Opportunities

Issue & cultural fit

Relational / social capital

Solidarity

Planning, acting,

evaluating

Timing

Team Development

Time

Organization (a design challenge)Because (1) Our collective intelligence must be adequate for the issues it needs to address; and (2) All of our major problems will need to be addressed collectively, we need to think about organization. !What structures could be useful as we grow? Are some better suited for CI4CG? Networks of networks? federations? scaling? fractal? !What roles do norms (etc.) play? How these established and maintained? !What advantages do formal organizations have? !Speaking of that, I’d like to see us informal working groups or “clusters?” (see next slide) !What coordination approaches could / should we employ? !How do we intelligently grow, leverage our resources, and encourage diversity? !We’re on our own! (to a large degree) !Possible articulation!• Forming informal clusters • Developing frameworks • Learning from our experience !

CIRAL (an educational project)CIRAL is the Civic Intelligence Research and ActionLab at The Evergreen State College. It’s now in its 4th year. !Students in the lab work collaboratively (in small groups we call “clusters”) on projects that they develop more-or-less themselves. The projects must use, demonstrate, and cultivate civic intelligence. The projects can stretch over several quarters. !The students run the weekly meetings and publish a weekly “Fresh Sheet” !While it might not work for all students, many of my students think it’s fantastic. !Clusters in theory can be quite open (one year a fellow faculty colleague joined one!) !Possible articulation!• Forming informal clusters in our community / network • Our students can work with your students? • Cluster idea applicable here? !!!

CIRAL examples…

Disabled Veteran Village To provide safe and stable housing and resources for low-income disabled veterans who are committed to returning to employment and/or independent living.

Intelligence (a concept)Collective intelligence occurs when “individual” units (e.g. people) contribute to an intelligent (effective and equitable) process. !How much mileage can we get from looking at intelligence / cognitive functions in individuals? !Useful for integrating tools? !Can we get any mileage out of looking at “discrete” aspects of intelligence — and then connect them?

• perceiving • discerning • naming • interpreting • evaluating • abstracting • filtering • reasoning about the

processes • storing (memory 1) • retrieval (memory 2)

• searching • analogizing • theorizing • imagining • arranging • reconfiguring • mashing up • questioning • hypothesizing !

• communicating • formulating questions • reasoning • abstracting • adapting • problematizing • weighing evidence • judging • arguing • roles of emotion

Pattern Languages (theory, method, practice)

A “pattern language” approach is used for organizing broad holistic knowledge bases. !Patterns are not recipes, but prompts or seeds; a pattern language is a collection of patterns. !Patterns are useful for collaboration, discussion, exploration. (But how do they get turned into action?) !We worked with 85 people to write Liberating Voices, a pattern language of 136 patterns !We now have 136 pattern cards and a version in Spanish. Also, inspired on a suggestion from a student we developed a set of 40 anti-patterns and designed cards for them. !Possible articulation!• Needs methodology — particularly of patterns in production • Work with community groups • New domain(s) for pattern language development !

Pattern Language examples

I’m hoping that some of this work will suggest

ways in which my work could be used to help

leverage your work — and our field in general.