To complete the trilogy of posts that I am writing in this blog to discuss the possibilities that Design offers to conceive participatory spaces that reinforce the democracy (I recommend first read the two previous releases: post I and post II), I will share as advance of the research I am doing for my book, a decalogue of principles that, in my own experience as a designer of participatory architectures, are critical for collective intelligence to be genuinely democratic

1. SIMPLICITY:

Simple rules allow for complex behaviors. Design guidelines must be minimal. The objective is to define basic principles for structuring the conversation and the aggregation. They should be a few but powerful. Be careful about over-designing because that, paradoxically, encourages simplistic behavior. Read more ›

During the training workshops I give, the participants often ask me the following question: what are the advantages and disadvantages of the open participatory models vs. expert groups?

This issue appears at almost every debate on collective intelligence. I could use Manichaean way of saying it: “collective intelligence ALWAYS works better than the experts“, but it is not true. There are circumstances that give advantage to one option over the other, and even though both of them have their drawbacks.

I used to think that the answer has laid in the level of the “technical” complexity of the problem. I thought if it was a very complex problem, with specific expert skills requirements, then the experts solution could work better. But then I´ve realized that it is not so relevant, and that the key to succeed is how you design the spaces for participation.

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