New research shows the power of the web to spread diversity and infect conformity by the provocation of weak signals. Farhad Manjoo from Slate reconsiders his(?) book True Enough’s proposition that the web was narrowing networkers’ worlds to the news/info selections that they chose. Now Facebook has released a study with an interesting design (based on millions of participants) that shows users’ worlds are actually expanded – not because of frequent exchanges with close friends – but because of unexpected encounters with distant acquaintances – the so-called weak signals in the study.
Building on my dissertation research on Leadership & Learning in Self-Organizing Systems, I found that Leaders were the participants in the system who could initiate a weak signal and grow a new pattern from it. Leaders could also amplify a weak signal created by another(s) and create (or co-create) a pattern that could impact and change the perspectives of the conformity enforcers (who defined the system norms).
City Leaders now have at their disposal both the Art and Science of quickening collective intelligence in their Human Hive. The Art allows them to create and co-create patterns through collaborating with both Diversity Generators and Conformity Enforcers. While the Science draws on the meshworks emerging from the dynamics of self-organizing systems.
City Leaders now have technology that not only amplifies weak signals but with evolutionary inspiration, they can quicken the spread of collective intelligence.
[...] City Leaders Amplify Weak Signals, Quicken Collective Intelligence [...]