MIT Sloan Management review - Spring 2010 Vol.51 No.3

THE LEADING QUESTION
How can you get crowds to do what your business needs done?

FINDINGS
>Collective intelligence has already been proven to work, and CI systems can be designed and managed to fit specific needs.
>CI building blocks, or “genes,” can be recombined to create the right kind of system.
>Four main questions drive CI “genome” design: What is being done? Who is doing it? Why? How?

The truly most powerful network question would be, “How can I activate my network to create value AS a network?” So, how do people naturally organize when they want to do something together?

Let’s take an example of a throwing a party. One person volunteers their backyard as a space (venue provider), someone else offers to buy the beer (bartender). Another person offers to provide the music (performer). Someone else starts texting invitations (communicator). Before you know it - there’s a party!

What just happened here? How did a social network quickly turn into a purposeful network that created something together?

The two magic words here are roles and deliverables. People naturally self organize around roles. They negotiate how those roles need to interact, and what they need to provide to each other - then they get the job done. This is a typical scenario for community groups and small projects, as well as emergency situations, such as a flood.

So to turn a social network into a value network, you first need to define the roles and core deliverables that are needed to create a certain kind of outcome – then give people a way to step up and fill those roles. That is how people create value – together.

Value networks are the natural way that people organize and collaborate and create value. With a simple focus on roles and deliverables people can quickly self organize and achieve the outcomes they want.