Over-arching themes of networked collaboration in contemporary society

"PEER TO PEER" collaborations
- surpassing the 'dunbar' effect on social relationships and side stepping the heirarchy which emerges in larger social networks
- broader network and breaking down traditional social boundaries creates greater access to resources (could be physical resources, idea based resources, financial support resources).


note: Technology appears to be an essential element in the peer to peer mode of collaborative thinking. A well known example of this is seen on myspace, facebook and twitter. Celebrities, high ranking professionals, government leaders etc, who have these accounts can (often) be directly reached by the average citizen. This offers opportunities to share ideas directly with those who can push the project forward and do so very quickly, due to the bypassing of social barriers.
It's worth noting that this only works in a case where both parties are faithfully using the technology and not simply rebuilding the social hierarchy by having someone else manage the account for them, which in effect converts it back into a tool for broadcasting and not necessarily networking.

In reference to a ted talk which was referred to our group by Dave, about the nature of good ideas, and how humans develop good ideas, 'peer to peer' collaboration with the aid of technology is a way of fast-tracking that process. The process I'm referring to is a part of developing good ideas that is based on having a series of 'hunches' and then sharing, swapping, stealing other people's 'hunches' in order to develop a more substantial idea.

These two ideas alone, Steven Johnson's assertion of how good ideas are formed and Michel Bauwens' notion of a peer to peer based society both suggest that we are becoming conscious as a technology and information based society and also that we now have the potential to develop massively awsome amazing ideas, and do so really fast… it seems like we've got our work cut out for us :S

bibly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNwMut3-z1Y&feature=player_embedded
http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0af00UcTO-c&NR=1