Collaboration for Sustainability
in a Networked World
Based on findings of thesis research for an MSc in
Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability
Blekinge Institute of Technology 2009 by Fei Rong, Alice-
Marie Archer and Rebecca Petzel

Background: Collaboration and
the web
Short Film introduction

Background: Collaboration and
the web
How can we apply this power to
leverage our work towards a
sustainable future?

Sustainability Challenge:
The GAP
We are faced with the following challenge
- to get to a state whereby we:
“meet the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs”
(United Nations General Assembly, 1987)

"sustainable development simply calls for
more collaboration since the changes
needed exceed the capacity of individual
actors."
(DeBruijn and Tukker 2002, 11)

Background: Mass
Collaboration
We think, collective intelligence, group genius, swarm
creativity...
Things these all have in common:
1. Diversity of opinion with a mix of knowledge and experience
2. Independence
3. Decentralization
4. Aggregation: mechanism for drawing out the collective decision
(Surowiecki 2005)
How can we harness these for sustainability?

Collaborative Innovation Networks -
COINs
“COIN: a cyber-team of self-
motivated people with a
collective vision, enabled by the
web to collaborate in achieving a
common goal by sharing ideas,
information, and work.”

Using Wikipedia to further Explain COINs
Main Editors: Collaborative Innovation Network (COIN)
Casual Editors: Collaborative Learning Network (CLN)
Wikipedia Consumers: Collaborative Interest Network (CIN)
A Wikipedia page is a COIN with a
CLN and CIN, and Wikipedia itself is a
great example of many COINs
working together as an Ecosystem:
one body, many organs.

Examples of COINs

Methodology: Research Design

Methodology at a glance
●Surveys (18 People)
●Interviews (38 People)
●Participant Observation
●Feedback

Results

Results: Vision –
COINs in a Sustainable Society
The World is Flat
● Self-organized, diverse, interconnected, empowered.
Businesses and governments operate as COINs:
platforms connecting people around shared-visions.
The New Networked Knowledge Economy
● Exchange of knowledge, the only limitless,
abundant resource
Physical Implications of Technology
● Low-impact technology, humanized with presence
Re-tribalized Man
● Exchanging stories of meaning, finding our global tribe

Results: Sustainability implications of
COINs today
Benefits of COINS for sustainability
● Distributed working
● Reduced resource consumption
● Self-organization, Diversity, Interdependence
● Bridging the ingenuity gap
● Socially sustainable organizational structure
Concerns of COIN working
● Lack of systems perspective can lead to increase in
unsustainable practices
● Amplification of success of COINs with a
fundamentally unsustainable vision

Electronic Waste on Docks waiting to be shipped, Photo by Dave Henniker

Results: Emerging Factors
Open Source, Open Everything
The value-added of social computing. Following success in software development
industry, questions are arising regarding the transfer of this model to other sectors.
Intellectual Property (IP)
How will IP survive the Internet Revolution?
Rise of Creative Commons copyright system as a response to IP challenges
The Networked Knowledge Economy
New communication technologies and networks allow for commons based peer
production: new economic order.
Web-Enabled Tribalism
People are using the web to find like minded individuals, forming online tribes which
sometimes seep out into the real world as these individuals seek each other out.
Emerging Technology
Humanizing technology, cloud computing, SaaS

Barriers to successful web-collaboration
● The Digital Divide
● Intellectual Property Concerns
● Technological Barriers
● External Cultural Barriers
● Internal Barriers
DEMOTIVATING CONTRIBUTION

76.5% of people do not have
internet access. Do your
desired contributors?

We arn't all part of the Net-Generation
76.5% of people do not
have internet access
Are your contributors digital immigrants or natives?

Sometimes technology i
frustrating
What is the technical
sophistication of your
contributors?

Advice: its all about K.I.S.S
KEEP
IT
SIMPLE
STUPID

Advice: Lower the bar to entry
● It only needs to be good enough
● Most collaborations can take
Place over email skype and
via a simple web platform

What will you do with
my intellectual property?
An adequate legal
framework is yet to
emerge as capable
of dealing with IP
over the web.

Not everyone thinks of Intellectual
property the same way. There are
big differences across cultures.

Advice: Be Clear
● Ensure from the beginning that contributors know what will
become of their contributions – clarify the return on their
investment.
● Shared risk = Shared reward
● Be aware of IP cultural differences in your COIN
● Consider emergent flexible copyright options such as Creative
Commons

There is a
Status Quo
bias that
new
technology
has more
bugs.

The web can be
distracting!

Advice: Take control of your web
● Separate work and non-work email
● Take time away from your computer
● Be present – when collaborating over the web in real time, don't
browse the web. When face to face, close your computers and
TALK to each other
● Be aware of your assumptions, take a neutral, open attitude

Don't be a hero-
its not covered by
our health plan.

The movement from
hierarchy to
chaordism /
wirearchy often
faces resistance
from the 'top'.

Advice: Get support from the top...
● And show support from the top...
COINs internal to an organisation that do not
feel supported, often 'break away' taking their
concept with them

Without the presence of
face to face
communication,they
People say things online
collaborations can face.due
wouldn't say face to fail
to dysfunctional
argumentation

People say
things online
they wouldn't
say face to
face.

Web
Collaborations
can suffer from
Poor Signal to
Noise Ratio

Over
controlling
leadership can
stifle a
collaboration

Collaborations often
fail due to lack of:
Shared vision
Trust and
Transparent
Communication:
the pillars of good
collaboration

Advice: Be an active participant
● Allow space for self organisation – take the role of facilitator and
active participant rather than leader.
● Operate in trust with transparent communication
● Ensure all communication can be accessed if so desire
● Choose systems that have a good signal to noise ratio – to
ensure a low barrier to entry for their use.
● BE NICE – don't underestimate the power of altruism

“The biggest challenge to harnessing the
collective intelligence of the world to help solve
some of the very serious problems we have
around sustainability….has to do with people
knowing not only how to use the software, but
ideas around critical thinking and collaboration.” –
Howard Rheingold

How 2 Guide
When to collaborate.
Know when to collaborate, or not (logic of going down this route).
Perfect Invitation.
How to engage the right crowd to participate in a collaboration (vision, rewards /
motivations, value-exchange)
Collaborator experience design.
Design a compelling experience for the participants of the collaboration (web
tools, culture, governance, legals)
Lead by example.
Be a great collaborator yourself (spontaneity, listening, story-telling, letting go).
Strategic considerations for COINs.
How to ensure our COINs are moving us towards sustainability.

Discussion

Discussion: How are COINs strategic
Towards Sustainability?
COINs support strategic COINs support
guidelines towards disruptive innovation
social sustainability towards sustainability

Discussion: COINs need a strategic
guiding vision
For COINs to be strategic towards sustainability they need to
be underpinned by a systems view of sustainability
●Ensuring basic understanding of sustainability
●Supporting the design of shared-vision
●Enabling the design of a strategy for progressing towards the shared
vision of success
●Ensuring outcomes of a COIN do not violate our sustainability
●Ensuring COIN outputs offer a flexible platform
We believe the FSSD to be an appropriate framework
for supporting the sustainable use of COINs

Application: A brief lesson on
how to build a COIN
Compelling proposition
●
Strong Vision
●
Guidelines for clear, transparent communication
●
Pick the minimum technology necessary
●
Keep it simple
●
Establish upfront what everyone has to loose and gain
●
Shared risk, shared reward
●

Recommendations: Further research
● A study of the resource implications of distributed working in COINs
● Developing taxonomies for interdisciplinary COINs
● Investigate legal constructs for web enabled collaborative innovation
networks
● Establishing Gatekeepers: communicating for multi-cultural COINs
● Developing a training scheme for teams desiring to form a COIN
● Developing an education programme for web enabled collaborative
innovation and critical thinking for school children

“the danger is not that we ask too much of
the Internet, but too little…it could be a new
platform for how we could organize
“the danger is not that we ask too much of
ourselves, to find knowledge together, to
the Internet, but too little…it could be a new
work out what is true and to decide
platform for how we could organize
together what we should do about it”
ourselves, to find knowledge together, to
–Tim Berners-Lee
work out what is true and to decide together
what we should do about it”
–Tim Berners-Lee
alicemarie.archer@gmail.com

Ninja Thanks:
● Our fab advisors: Merlina and Tamara
● Menka
●Our Interviewees and survey respondents, too numerous to list here
● The Collaboration Ninjas: Henno, PG, Joe, DeepMonk, Joel,
Denele, Tim, Dean, Jaco, Tim
● Paulie-nka (deviantart) for the puzzle-piece slide backgrounds
●www.wordle.net for our funky tag cloud
REFS
●http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2053/2229752965_ae28533a0a_o.jpg
●http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/sword/plagiarism.jpg
●http://nirel.deviantart.com/art/Scream-17026336
●http://www.jarche.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/wirearchy.jpg
●http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/images/human.gif
●http://digitalminds.deviantart.com/art/Pain-in-the-ass-101307904
●http://altair4444.deviantart.com/art/Puppet-Not-15196569
●http://marthema.deviantart.com/art/Together-35327305