Charles Leadbeater gave an interesting talk at the RSA a couple of weeks ago, on the occasion of publishing his new book, “We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity“. You can already download an audio recording of his talk, but for those who like to have a quick overview, here are some notes I’ve put together:

Charles started the talk showing that he’s very much in touch with what’s going on in the Web 2.0 world - not just looking from a distance. He asked if anyone in the audience is writing on Twitter about this talk. Turns out there are a couple of people doing this, although still less than an earlier talk he did at NESTA. As an aside, Charles pointed out that it’s always interesting for a presenter to look at all the commentary that springs out online after a talk - it helps to get an idea about how his message has gotten across.

The two main questions that he’s trying to cover in his book and in this talk are: (1) will the web change society? and (2) if yes, is it good or bad? Lots of scholars have tackled these issues from various angles, but his initial position is that the web is bringing along a big wave of change, and it’s generally a good idea.

We are all “collaborative individualists” - autonomy vs. authority is a very old dilemma, but in the web we can see relationships between the individual & the social being formed in novel ways. Hierarchies are getting more transparent and fluid. If one could  visualise Wikipedia, it would look like a bird’s nest, with many small individual contributions.

The most powerful currency that keeps these structures together is recognition, something which is not always possible to get “at work” but features prominently in many social activities. Recognition was once linked to celebrity & wealth, but now people are finding they can get recognition for their participation in worthwhile social causes.

It’s also important to note that (physical) assets become capital when they are owned, but ideas create value when they are shared. That’s why mass creativity is good for innovation.

The web has also become a better medium than mainstream press for debate, that’s why it’s good for democracy. Especially mobile technologies have amplified the effects of participation and have helped mobilise people & organisations for democratic causes.

Having free access to information sources such as Wikipedia or open-source software such as Linux has been a major boost for developing countries, thus mass creativity has been good for equality.

Perhaps a bit more controvertial is the thought that the web is good for freedom, despite the increasing privacy concerns abour the mass of information gathered through our online activities. An example that was given in favour of this argument is that of the film clubs that were set up for factory workers in communist Poland: the government wanted them to be little more than a distraction and a form of resistance to the Western film industry - instead, workers managed to collaborate in order to create films with hidden anti-communist messages.

Q&As from the chair followed:

• How will people earn a living through sharing? Charles didn’t have any more insights apart from the usual answer of value-added services (e.g. support & extensions of open-source software), but he did seem to think that this is a viable model.
• Is it really “participation” or just a few big companies & top bloggers shaping the landscape and making money? Charles thinks there’s still a lot of tension in the corporate world, that there are “civil wars” between secrecy and sharing inside companies. Eventually the most successful companies will realise that they can’t just take what’s shared - they also need to share back.
• Is on-line collaboration radically different between off-line? It’s better if both forms are mixed, not sure if online or offline only is sufficient. “Norms and customs” for online collaboration are quite different - Charles mentioned an example of being called a “utopian cretin” in a comment to one of his posts, but he managed to enter into a discussion and diffuse the situation. The real question for him is whether we can use our online social networks to help drive bigger changes, e.g. tackle global warming.

Finally, some topics discussed with the audience:

• Privacy is an important issue: some argue that we’ve lost a “sense of place” that we have in the real world (e.g. we behave differently in our bedroom than in our workplace) and we’re “living for an audience” all the time. But probably this is just a matter of time until a new online ettiquete will emerge - young people are already getting quite adept at this.
• There is concern about the use of open-source technologies by countries such as India & China which are still quite authoritative - Charles thinks that the “battle of open vs. closed” will be fought in these countries.
• Mass creativity has produced massive heaps of information - it should be easier to make sense of all those contributions, and technologies that do this successfully need to take into account personalised recommendations and the factor of trust.