New Year, New Themes: Edgeryders Blog and Social Media Outreach, 2015

One of the things I would like Edgeryders to get really good at is building collective intelligence around problems, topics and themes that members of the community are interested in.

What do I mean by collective intelligence?

In my mind it’s a process that sort of looks like this…


Why is collective intelligence good?

…because engaging with different perspectives on a topic or theme is one way we can break free of our filter bubbles and challenge our thinking as individuals and collectively. Also, I believe the process sets a good foundation for collaborations to emerge between participants along the way.

In running the Edgeryders social media accounts and community blog so they contribute to this, we have three major challenges:

  1. Going through huge amounts of conversations we have been having in order to identify patterns is difficult and time consuming: it is also easy to miss important correlations. This is a temporary problem: OpenEthnographer, free software we are developing with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, will make this easier.
  2. Making it easier for people arriving later in a conversation, or who disappear for a bit, can participate meaningfully without first needing to read through a year's worth of posts and comments :)
  3. Not giving into the temptation to jump onto new topics away from existing themes and topics that are important, relevant and deserve to be explored over longer periods of time.

Which do you feel are most interesting themes or questions that were discussed in 2014 that you personally would like us to drive conversation around?

What topic or theme are you interested enough to write a well-researched post on?

Leave a comment with your input below!