Yet another lesson from the birds and the bees
July 18th, 2007 - Posted by: vanessaWe’ve all watched with amazement as a flock of birds changes direction as if choreographed, a school of fish scatters on command, or a line of ants marches to some hidden destination. It seems there must be a leader, a queen bee or the king of the ant hill, coordinating not just when and where to move, but which members of the group should get food, protect the community, or help with construction. It appears some unheard chatter must be spreading the word from on high to the masses, and that everyone would then go about following orders.
National Geographic reports in “Swarm Theory” by Peter Miller that the success of swarms is not based on a master plan coming from the leader of the pack. Rather, these complex systems are solved in utterly decentralized ways:
“No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all.”
Swarm intelligence is based on each individual following relatively simple rules and taking action based on local information. In doing so, groups can accomplish infinitely complex tasks well beyond the ability of any given individual — without leadership or any individual seeing the complete picture.
Most amazing is the ways bees decide where to relocate their hive. First, scout bees set out in different directions to find the best site for their new home. The scouts then return to the swarm and perform a waggle dance, which communicates both the direction of the recommended site and the scout’s enthusiasm for it. Bees from the hive then congregate around the site they prefer after seeing the different scouts’ waggle dances. Once a site attracts 15 bees, it is deemed the winner, and the bees from the chosen site spread the news to the rest of the community. Cornell University biologists studying this behavior were not surprised to see this democratic system resulting in the bees choosing the best of five possible sites for their new hive.
“The bees rules for decision-making – seek a diversity of opinions, encourage a free competition among ideas, and use an effective mechanism to narrow choices” is a lesson MixedInk takes to heart. While most group decisions and documents emerge from a group’s leadership, MixedInk uses a decentralized system to encourage all members to play a part. Acting on local information or using specific skills, each person can add a unique perspective. These opinions are then aggregated, with the most popular collective opinion emerging through a democratic process – just like the bees use to find the best site for their hive. Through decentralization, a trust in local knowledge, and faith in the democratic process, MixedInk gives voice to the masses and harnesses the power of the swarm to create an output better than what any individual could have accomplished alone.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Thank-you! I very much enjoyed your post and the Swarm Theory.
I am big believer in the power of mass collaboration and democracy but also believe that it’s not the best choice for all decisions. Truly disruptive concepts that appear radical often go against the “crowd” (atleast for a period of time) before being adopted. Often it’s individuals that keep pushing their vision against popular thinking that allow these radical concepts to eventually break through. The Ipod is a popular example where Steve Jobs “mandated” there will be no “on/off” button even though the majority was against the concept.
Mass collaboration seems to work best when the rules/laws or algorithim required to make a decision is well known and stable, when the participants are equipped to make the decisions and when the rules/laws or algorithims do not need to be broken to overcome some new challenge or oppoprtunity.
July 26th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Thanks for your insightful response. I would certainly agree with you that collaboration/ democracy does not always lead to the best results (take slavery as another example of a crowd collectively participating in something terribly wrong). I think Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds helps us think about when crowds are smart and when they aren’t. According to him, a smart crowd has a diversity of opinion; independence from other’s opinions; decentralization (and the ability to draw on local knowledge); and an aggregation mechanism for private opinions. When these criteria are not met, we often find crowds acting in ways that are definitely not wise — sometimes even to the detriment of the members of the crowd.
That said, I am sure you are right that there are cases where someone goes against the wisdom of the crowd (even when the crowd is wise according to Surowiecki’s criteria) to achieve something that the majority cannot even envision. However, I would venture that in most cases a wise crowd will come up with more creative and salient solutions to a problem than any given individual, regardless of that person’s intellect.
I would agree with you that the rules of the game should be transparent and stable, participants should be equipped to express their opinions, and that barriers to creativity should be eliminated for collaboration to work best.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:22 am
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Yet another lesson from the birds and the bees, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.