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UNIT
4
O rga n isation
COLLECTIVE I NTELLIGENCE
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Before you read
Will large companies still exist 100 years from now? Why? I Why not?
Reading
Read this article from the Financial Times and answer the questions.
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e e e
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY
Looking to Wikipedia for answers
b y Thomas Malone
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To understand how large-scale
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can have the economic benefits
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organisations
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five
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without
important
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who
wants
to
Wikipedia
decisive
benefits
can
free
and
During
- and have done so with almost
we can expect to see such ideas
socialise with
no central i sed control. Anyone
in operation in more and more
cases,
who
wants
to
can
change
so
coming
work.
parts of the economy. These new
almost anything. and decisions
practices have various names, but
about
the phrase I find most useful is
what
changes
are
kept
of those
is
a
who
that
organisational
illustrates
so
ss
as
get
for
other
enjoyment,
or opportunities to
such
others.
as
In other
online
retailer
eBay, people get paid to do so.
These
changes
of change
number of people and computers
people
work
will
not
happen overnight, but the rate
What i f we could have any
how
such
recognition
·collective intell igence · .
care. Wikipedia
remarkable
invention
benefits
decades,
contribute.
video-sharing
they
because
the world's largest encyclopaedia
the
of
the case of
their
contribute
75
can
YouTube,
high-quality intellectual product ­
innovation-driven
type
in
or
website
competitive
advantages i n knowledge-based
freelance
collective intell igence is ' crowd
intelligence ' ,
where
anyone
motivation and creat ivity.
human
of
be
few minutes a day.
Sometimes, as
provide
�s
a
would
contractors each working for a
small ones - freedom, nexibility.
These
collectively
created a large and surprisingly
large
giving up the human benefits of
people
and
still
needed to capture economies of
increasing number of cases. we
are made by a loose consensus
is
accelerating, and
busi nesspeople a hundred years
85
from
now
may
find
the
of communication.
for patients in a hospital? Or
pervasive corporate hierarchies
of today as quaint as we find
such as the internet, are making
designing cars. Or selling retail
the
it
products. We mjght find that the
an earlier era.
new
126
many
scale or to control risks. B u t in an
thousands of people from across
the
ln
large­
Wikipedia, eBay and Google.
30
is
to use one part-time employee
in the future, we need to look
25
today
of
everywhere.
scale
zo
ways
past 100 years. the best models
Motors.
15
new
time
But
10
course.
organising work are not desirable
were
"
Of
work was organised during the
forms
possible
to
organise
in new and innovative ways.
connected to, for instance, care
work
ro
best
way
to
do
a
task
feudal
farming
system
of
that
© Pearson Education limited 2010 PHOTOCOPIABLE
TEXT BANK ... ... UNIT 4
1
Look through the whole article and find:
a) three traditional com panies.
b) four Internet companies.
2 Read paragraph 2 and decide if these
statements are true or false.
Wikipedia ...
a) entries can only be changed by the person who
wrote them.
b) has no central control at all.
c) is the largest encyclopaedia in the world.
d) is of high quality.
e) copies existing ways of working.
3 Look at paragraph 3 and find:
8 What three benefits do people get from
contributing to crowd intelligence websites,
apart from money? (paragraph 6)
9
Use correct forms of expressions from
paragraph 7 to complete these statements.
a) If something exists in a lot of different places,
it is . . . . . . . . . .
b) A social system with aristocrats and almost
powerless farmers is . . . . . . . . . .
c) If something doesn't happen immediately,
it doesn't happen . . . . . . . . . .
d) Something that is strange and old-fashioned
is . . . . . . . . . .
e) If a process speeds up, it . . . . . . . . . .
Over to you 1
a) two benefits of large organisations.
b) four benefits of small ones.
Do you share the writer's optimism about the potential
of collective intelligence? Why? I Why not?
4 Now match the expressions in Exercise 3 to
their definitions.
a) when people have new ideas
Over to you 2
Could collective intelligence be used in your own
industry, or one that you would like to work in?
b) the ability to work 'as your own boss'
c) to limit the effect of unexpected events
d) when people work with enth usiasm and a sense
of purpose
e) the ability to work when and where you want to
f) when high levels of production result in lower
costs per unit produced
5 Read paragraph 4. In which areas will the
benefits of small organisations be most
useful?
6 Find the name the writer prefers for this new
way of working in paragraph 4.
7 Which of these areas is not mentioned in
paragraph 5 in relation to the potential
application of collective intelligence?
a) healthcare
PHOTOCOPIABLE
b) wholesale
c) retail
d) design
© Pearson Education Limited 2010
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