A group decision should be made in a product development team, for example, because everyone should agree on the specifications of the product they are working towards. Some ways to achieve a group decision include voting (ex: YouTube ranks videos based on their view count), averaging (ex: rating books on Amazon), consensus (only feasible if the group is small or cohesive enough), or a prediction market (continuously updated estimate of a number). 

Group decision

An individual decision should be made on platforms such as YouTube, where people don’t have to agree on which videos they will watch. Individual decisions can be reached through the market (when money is a necessary motivator for people to put in effort and resources) or a social network (no money is necessary, individuals find others’ opinions useful when making their own decisions).

Individual decision

If the task is to decide, the task will either require a group decision (every group member needs to abide by the same decision) or individual decisions (people can make their own decisions or tastes are highly varied).

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

This building block is split into two categories based on whether one is creating or deciding.

Building block 4: How is it being done?

Malone, Thomas & Laubacher, Robert & Dellarocas, Chrysanthos. (2010). The Collective Intelligence Genome. IEEE Engineering Management Review. 38. 38-52. 10.1109/EMR.2010.5559142. 

The Collective Intelligence Genome

If the task is to create, the task can be accomplished through collection, contest, or collaboration. Collection is useful when the task can be divided into small activities that can be done relatively independently of each other. YouTube and Flickr are examples of collections, as YouTubers and photographers upload videos independently of each other. A contest is useful when only a few good outcomes are needed, like for instance in the Threadless t-shirt contests. A collaboration should be used when the task cannot be divided into independent pieces, and the dependency among the pieces can be managed well. All Wikipedia articles, for instance, are collaborative. 

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