Networks and Collaboration
We are surrounded by “collective goods”
- The whole group shares in the output, independent of their contributions
- Parks
- Roads
- National defense
- Lighthouses
- Group projects
However, these goods have misaligned incentives
- Individual incentive is to do little or nothing
- Especially when your contribution will make little difference
- These goods are typically underproduced, without help
Collaboration is the great human super power. How do we do it?
- States or organizations that force people to make the “right” decision
- Punishment for defection
- Selective incentives
- Heterogenous benefits
What do networks have to do with collaboration?
- People are “embedded” in networks
- Defecting has social impacts if they occur in networks
- Rumor is a way of promoting cooperation
- Through networks, people can coordinate
- Figure out who knows what (transactive memory)
- Building shared understanding of goals (shared mental model)
Online Collaboration works surprisingly well
- Wikipedia and open source software often work better than what companies produce
- Why does it work?
- Artifact does a lot of the work of coordinating
- Costs of contribution are lower
- Internet allows for the identification of people for whom contribution is easy
Networks and Collaboration