Briefly speaking about each of the parts, the first one presents the reasoning for social physics, attributing to the themes of social exploration (Chapter 2), idea flow (Chapter 3), and engagement (Chapter 4). The author starts with the explanation how social exploration is deeply connected with the diversity of ideas and social learning, the combination of which is the only way which leads to any innovation. Pentland advocates the “wisdom of the crowd” judgment in contrast to individual opinion, reminding that collective intelligence is used to be the leading one throughout the whole history of humanity. He presents the evidence of an online trading platform where the “wise” optimal lies between the judgement of isolated traders and those
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The scholar starts with the discussion of collective intelligence (Chapter 5) and three characteristics of a high-performing groups. These are 1) the production of numerous but brief ideas, 2) the consistent and close-knit cooperation, and 3) the diversity of ideas. In order to enhance collective intelligence, management should not focus on managing individual aptitudes but rather work on shaping adequate interaction patterns. In this context, Pentland insists on the usage of social network incentives as the primary tool which enables a company to positively impact the employees’ behavior. A concrete and striking example of such incentives (also referred to as nudges) is the Red Balloon Challenge as detailed in the discussed book. Briefly speaking, the Red Balloon Challenge contest took place in the United States as a part of the celebration of forty years of existence of the Internet (DARPA). To win a substantial cash prize, participating teams were to find ten red balloons hidden all across the continental US, Although the majority of teams chose to reward those who found balloons, Pentland’s team took an entirely different strategy and proposed compensation to everyone who recruited relevant people for balloon search. Pentland’s social incentive scheme led his team to an astonishingly quick victory (a few hours), bearing in mind that it succeeded in recruiting more people to help than any other team. Besides, the strategy encouraged cooperation instead of competition, from which suffered those teams who only offered individual awards. In this way, the scholar proved not only the efficiency of social network incentives but the productivity of approaching human social nature as the privileged method of influence within an
The scholar starts with the discussion of collective intelligence (Chapter 5) and three characteristics of a high-performing groups. These are 1) the production of numerous but brief ideas, 2) the consistent and close-knit cooperation, and 3) the diversity of ideas. In order to enhance collective intelligence, management should not focus on managing individual aptitudes but rather work on shaping adequate interaction patterns. In this context, Pentland insists on the usage of social network incentives as the primary tool which enables a company to positively impact the employees’ behavior. A concrete and striking example of such incentives (also referred to as nudges) is the Red Balloon Challenge as detailed in the discussed book. Briefly speaking, the Red Balloon Challenge contest took place in the United States as a part of the celebration of forty years of existence of the Internet (DARPA). To win a substantial cash prize, participating teams were to find ten red balloons hidden all across the continental US, Although the majority of teams chose to reward those who found balloons, Pentland’s team took an entirely different strategy and proposed compensation to everyone who recruited relevant people for balloon search. Pentland’s social incentive scheme led his team to an astonishingly quick victory (a few hours), bearing in mind that it succeeded in recruiting more people to help than any other team. Besides, the strategy encouraged cooperation instead of competition, from which suffered those teams who only offered individual awards. In this way, the scholar proved not only the efficiency of social network incentives but the productivity of approaching human social nature as the privileged method of influence within an