Difference between revisions of "Main Page"
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| − | == | + | == What's the Problem? == |
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| + | In any group there will be competition and cooperation. Politically this translates to right wing and left wing. In business it is free enterprise and public service. And the supporters of each side usually claim that their way is the best. However, any thoughtful analysis must eventually come to the conclusion that both are needed in the right balance for the happy, healthy, effective and efficient functioning of any group. After all have you ever seen a bird with one wing fly? Competition without cooperation ends up with disparities in wealth and opportunity. Cooperation without competition results in complacency and mediocrity. And like any system that is out of balance it is not stable and will fluctuate to a lesser or greater extent from one extreme to the other trying to find an equilibrium. | ||
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| + | Almost all the current forms of Democracy are out of balance as they are inherently more competitive than cooperative. Just look at political parties, they are like sporting teams or waring tribes who battle each other where the truth is usually injured in the first five minutes and has to be carried off the field of play. Once you join a political party you can't be the member of another party. To be a candidate for a political party you have to win preselection which is often a no holds barred fight. If you don't join a political party and run as an independent you still have to compete with all the other candidates to win a seat in an electorate. Each political party has a person called a 'whip' to keep the elected representatives in line. So it is not surprising that our political system is out of balance. And, this is also true of the business world where competition is considered a key element for success. In fact it permeates almost all spheres of modern life. On the other hand cooperation is mostly seen as a luxury that can only be afforded when the competition is not too strong. | ||
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| + | Traditionally group business required a common physical forum. In the internet age we have had an explosion of collaborative spaces which do not require a physical location. Examples are Lotus Notes, Wikis, Blogs, SharePoint, Forums, Bulletin Boards, Shared Excel Spreadsheets, Google Docs and Facebook to name a few of the more well known ones. This has made it easier to have your say but it is harder to be heard as their are so many more people raising and commenting on issues. For example when a news items appear online and are opened for comment there will often be a large number of respondents having their say. Most of the comments will be either for, against or some degree of undecided. If you have ever tried to read all the comments you will know that it quickly becomes very tedious after the first couple of dozen and most people just give up. | ||
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| + | I have found that this problem can be solved by applying the "object oriented" method of software development to the creation and management of documentation. With this approach in the news forum example the thousands of words written by hundreds of people can end up being just tens of words with the for, undecided and against positions noted against the chosen words for the issue. So instead of having to read all the comments to understand the issue and what the collective position of all participants is you only need to read the distilled set of words and see what the aggregated position of all participants is. Another example where 'Object Oriented Documentation', or 'OO Doco', can be applied with great benefit is in the documentation of software development. | ||
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| + | When there is contention between the participants in a collaborative space over an issue then there is no clear method to resolve it. At best differences are highlighted and participants are given the option to accept or reject changes. Evidence and merit all too regularly take second place to raw politics and flawed decisions are unfortunately usually the result. The jokes about the decisions made by committees highlight this only too well. | ||
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Democracy is great! However, there’s still room for improvement. VoteWrap is a flexible democratic method that improves democracy by introducing a variable consensus level calculated from how important and urgent an issue is to each voter. And, by dynamically integrating all the following formal and informal elements of voting: | Democracy is great! However, there’s still room for improvement. VoteWrap is a flexible democratic method that improves democracy by introducing a variable consensus level calculated from how important and urgent an issue is to each voter. And, by dynamically integrating all the following formal and informal elements of voting: | ||
Revision as of 01:23, 29 June 2010
What's the Problem?
In any group there will be competition and cooperation. Politically this translates to right wing and left wing. In business it is free enterprise and public service. And the supporters of each side usually claim that their way is the best. However, any thoughtful analysis must eventually come to the conclusion that both are needed in the right balance for the happy, healthy, effective and efficient functioning of any group. After all have you ever seen a bird with one wing fly? Competition without cooperation ends up with disparities in wealth and opportunity. Cooperation without competition results in complacency and mediocrity. And like any system that is out of balance it is not stable and will fluctuate to a lesser or greater extent from one extreme to the other trying to find an equilibrium.
Almost all the current forms of Democracy are out of balance as they are inherently more competitive than cooperative. Just look at political parties, they are like sporting teams or waring tribes who battle each other where the truth is usually injured in the first five minutes and has to be carried off the field of play. Once you join a political party you can't be the member of another party. To be a candidate for a political party you have to win preselection which is often a no holds barred fight. If you don't join a political party and run as an independent you still have to compete with all the other candidates to win a seat in an electorate. Each political party has a person called a 'whip' to keep the elected representatives in line. So it is not surprising that our political system is out of balance. And, this is also true of the business world where competition is considered a key element for success. In fact it permeates almost all spheres of modern life. On the other hand cooperation is mostly seen as a luxury that can only be afforded when the competition is not too strong.
Traditionally group business required a common physical forum. In the internet age we have had an explosion of collaborative spaces which do not require a physical location. Examples are Lotus Notes, Wikis, Blogs, SharePoint, Forums, Bulletin Boards, Shared Excel Spreadsheets, Google Docs and Facebook to name a few of the more well known ones. This has made it easier to have your say but it is harder to be heard as their are so many more people raising and commenting on issues. For example when a news items appear online and are opened for comment there will often be a large number of respondents having their say. Most of the comments will be either for, against or some degree of undecided. If you have ever tried to read all the comments you will know that it quickly becomes very tedious after the first couple of dozen and most people just give up.
I have found that this problem can be solved by applying the "object oriented" method of software development to the creation and management of documentation. With this approach in the news forum example the thousands of words written by hundreds of people can end up being just tens of words with the for, undecided and against positions noted against the chosen words for the issue. So instead of having to read all the comments to understand the issue and what the collective position of all participants is you only need to read the distilled set of words and see what the aggregated position of all participants is. Another example where 'Object Oriented Documentation', or 'OO Doco', can be applied with great benefit is in the documentation of software development.
When there is contention between the participants in a collaborative space over an issue then there is no clear method to resolve it. At best differences are highlighted and participants are given the option to accept or reject changes. Evidence and merit all too regularly take second place to raw politics and flawed decisions are unfortunately usually the result. The jokes about the decisions made by committees highlight this only too well.
Democracy is great! However, there’s still room for improvement. VoteWrap is a flexible democratic method that improves democracy by introducing a variable consensus level calculated from how important and urgent an issue is to each voter. And, by dynamically integrating all the following formal and informal elements of voting:
- Issue Proposal
- Issue Wording
- Issue Importance & Urgency
- Voting Compulsion
- Quorum
- Resource Contribution
- Voting Finalisation
- Confidence
- Secret Vote
- Representation
- Undecided Votes
- Relative priority to other issues
- Associated sub-issues
Complexity is reduced and time saved as VoteWrap carries your default settings into each new vote so for most Issue's you'll only need to vote for:
- Importance - Low, Medium or High
- Urgency - Low, Medium or High
- Actual vote - No, Undecided-No, Undecided, Undecided–Yes or Yes
- Confidence Level - Low, Medium or High
- Voting Finalisation - Yes or No
With VoteWrap you can either vote for the whole issue or, if you’re not happy, propose amendments by VoteWraping dependent sub-issues for resolution.
Visual pattern recognition is a human strong point so by viewing your real time prioritised VoteWrap issues in your favourite visual format you’ll know more, sooner.
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/
Data Mining: Mapping The Blogosphere
http://datamining.typepad.com/gallery/blog-map-gallery.html
