Every week or two it seems that another example of ways that software, network dynamics, bidding and negotiation between sets of skills, collaboration, cooperation and similar activities are leading to an emerging synthesis of social networking, brainstorming, collaborative work, predictive markets, and peer-to-peer negotiations (see Michel Bauwen’s work on Peer-to-Peer Economies)

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“Knowledge workers own the means of production in a Knowledge Economy” – P. Drucker

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Kluster is a platform for crowdsourcing and then organizing and putting to use skills, energy and availability on projects and initiatives. It presented (unveiled itself ?) at the recent TED conference in Monterey, California.

Here’s an excerpt of the early review from ReadWriteWeb.

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Kluster Launches at TED: A New Product in 72 Hours

Crowdsourcing firm Kluster officially launched yesterday at the TED conference, which is underway this week in Monterey, California. Founder Ben Kaufman, who bankrolled the company in part with money from the sale of his last company Mophie, has organized a gimmick over the course of the TED conference he hopes will prove Kluster’s worth. Kaufman intends to let TED attendees — and users from around the world — design a completely new product over the course of 72 hours.

The idea behind Kluster is that a group of passionate people working together can come up with better solutions for any decision-making problem than a single person. Whether that is planning an event, designing a new logo, or creating a new product, Kluster believes their system can.

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The Kluster system works by breaking down products into manageable chunks. For each chunk (or “phase”), people submit what are called “sparks.” Sparks are proposed solutions for that phase. For each spark, other participants can submit “amps” — which are improvements to that idea. Users also assign “watts” to sparks and amps they like. Watts work kind of like investments. You accrue points based on participation and other factors, and can invest those points (watts) in ideas you like.

Then an algorithm that takes into account “each user’s successes, failures, reputation, areas of expertise, and overall history” goes to work to determine which sparks are the best. Companies interested in using the Kluster system, put up cash prizes that are doled out along the way (at the completion of each phase).

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Do you think that the Wisdom Of Crowds can take shape as the Collective Intelligence of the Organizational Crowd ?
Robin Williams on Kluster

Is this an early not-so-weak signal of how knowledge work will be put to use in the not-so-distant future ? Interconnected loose confederations of skunkworks, circa 2009 ?

It seems more like wirearchy than hierarchy as an organizing principle to me .. though I am sure that pertinent elements of hierarchy based on direction (setting up of initiatives), ranking and filtering will come into play.

It will be very interesting to see how much organized work will resemble this form of organization in another ten years. I hope I am around to see and comment.

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