The 12 tenets of Global Collective Intelligence

It begins with the 7 tenets of the original collective intelligence (the one that we naturally know in small groups).

1. An emerging whole: each jazz band, sports team, working team has its own personality, a style, a spirit to which we refer as if they were an individuality. When we emphasize the success, the quality and the unity of a group, it is another way to express the fact that this Whole appears so obviously.

2. A 'holoptical' space: the spatial proximity gives each participant a complete and ever updated perception of this Whole. Each player, thanks to his/her experience and expertise, refers to it to anticipate his/her actions, adjust them and coordinates them with the actions of the others. Therefore there is an unceasing round trip, a feedback loop that works like a mirror between the individual level and the collective one. We define holopticism as this set of properties, that is the 'horizontal' transparency (perception of the other participants), and the 'vertical' communication with the emerging Whole. In the examples above, the conditions of holopticism are given by physical 3D space; our natural organic senses then serve as interfaces. The role of a coach, or an external observer, consists in encouraging the conditions for holopticism.

3. A social contract: whether it is musical harmony, game rules, or work legislation, the group is shaped around a social contract, tacit or explicit, objective or subjective, that is accepted and staged by each participant. The social contract is not only about values and rules of the group, but also the means of its self-perpetuation.

4. A polymorphic architecture: the mapping of relationships is continuously updated depending on circumstances, proficiency, perceptions, tasks to accomplish, or relational rules based on the social contract. It gets strongly magnetized around talents or expertise. Then each expert, as recognized by the group, takes the lead one after the other to act according to needs. In a sport team for instance, the right-winger becomes the leader when the ball comes into his space, but it can happen that he becomes the goalkeeper when the situation requires it.

5. A circulating object-link: as Pierre Lévy explains so well in a paper called Collective Intelligence and its objects (1994), "The players use the ball simultaneously as an index that turns between individual subjects, as a vector that allows everyone to design everyone, and as the main object, the dynamic link of the collective subject. We shall consider the ball as a prototype of the linking-object, the collective intelligence catalyzing object". Melody, ball, objective, or 'objective' of the meeting, no doubt that original collective intelligence gets built upon convergence of individualities toward a collectively pursued object, whether or not the object is a physical or symbolic one (a project for instance). When they belong in symbolic space, it is an absolute necessity that these objects must be clearly identified and united in their number and quality by each participant of the group, otherwise this leads to some of those fuzzy situations that all of us have already painfully experienced.

6. A learning organization: the learning process not only operates at the individual level, but it also involves the existence of a social process that takes charge of mistakes, and integrates and transforms them into shared cognitive objects. It enhances the development of the relational intelligence, what we learn for ourselves is useful for others.

7. A gift economy: in the competition-economy, the one we know today, we pick something for ourselves in exchange for compensation, most often money. In the gift economy, we give first, then we receive once the community has increased its wealth. Raising our children, taking care of the elderly, giving our sweat to a sports team, being involved in an NGO, or helping each other in the neighborhood are examples that demonstrate that the gift economy is the absolute base of social life. This is so obvious that we are generally unaware of it. Could any community be sustainable in the long run if it relied on the dynamics of individual sacrifice? In the gift economy, each participant finds a strong individual advantage that motivates him to give the best of himself. The gift economy organizes the convergence between individual and collective levels.

Emerging whole, holopticism, social contract, polymorphic social architecture, circulating objects-link, learning organization, or gift economy, here are the main qualities that we will find in all communities in which original collective intelligence is at work. Each characteristic is all at once the cause and the consequence of the other characteristics. None can be taken separately. The more they are developed and coordinated, the more the community is able to evolve and create the future in complex, unexpected and uncertain contexts.

Then it continues with 5 additional tenets to evolve to a higher level of complexity: a global Collective Intelligence.

8. A sufficient currency: the gift economy does not need to be regulated by accounting processes at the scale of small groups. When it comes to large groups of people, a monetary information system becomes necessary. 'Monetary' here is defined in the way it acts as a medium of exchange and store of value. Thus we are exploring the role of circulating currencies, not scarce, but sufficient and available in real time.

9. Standards and norms: just like with pyramidal intelligence, standards and norms remain indispensable to organize the cohesion and the degree of permeability and interoperability of large communities. But in the case of global Collective Intelligence, they are issued from ascending emergence processes. Their function aims at maximizing the interoperability and the capability to build functional, ever more complex sets rather than seeking hegemonies in competition contexts.

10. An information system: by playing a role in all the properties listed here, it is used to organize and optimize the symbolic space shared by the community. It interconnects our senses via more and more powerful and extended interfaces, it builds and presents digestible synthesis, it processes complex calculus, simulations and anticipations that neither our senses nor our intelligence are able to achieve, it organizes and indexes the collective memory, it counts monetary transactions, it applies the social contract, and it rebuilds artificial holoptical spaces where being in proximity is not sufficient anymore, it puts people in relation with one another according to polymorphism's needs, and it connects us to cyberspace.

11. A permanent interpenetration with cyberspace: no community today can pretend to be smart if no exchange dynamics is at work within cyberspace. There we find the most advanced knowledge, the most fulfilling experiences, and the best practices. Then it is our turn to deliver our experience, to link with others, etc… and doing so we give resonance to this echo chamber of humanity.

12. Personal development: the mutation toward Collective Intelligence at a large scale cannot happen without a profound individual and societal transformation. We enter into the inner sphere, into the spiritual work linked with our very own existence. We don't have the space to cover this immense topic here which, in any case, leads back to each person’s individual journey.