From Users to (Sense)Makers: Open sourcing and interconnecting our collective sensemaking for healthier information ecologies

Abstract

“The internet is a tool for thought and might as well get good at it.” – Gordon Brander

We’ll try to unpack that line, and discuss how our everyday activity on the web can actually contribute to collective intelligence — with the right tools and practices. To answer, we’ll introduce the fascinating field of stigmergy, which studies how collective intelligence emerges from local environment modifications, such as ant pheromone trails. We’ll then present two stigmergy-inspired projects we’re working on that apply decentralized web technologies towards more regenerative information ecologies:

• Common Sense Protocol: A decentralized and interoperable annotation protocol. Enables self-sovereign ownership and sharing of stigmergic markers which facilitate cross-platform networking and curation.
• Portable Communities: Peer communities ‘mark’ each other with domains of expertise, creating networks of respect that enable new forms of collective sensemaking, coordination, and people discovery