A few Friday afternoon thoughts about pheromones, information foraging, and the success of online communities brought on by reading a doctoral student’s proposal draft…
There seem to be a number of people pursuing biological models of the way online communities function. Of course, we had a go a few years back with our notion of online self-organizaing social systems, but there are much older comparisons that are (more?) interesting. I particularly like Pirolli’s notion of information foraging . And you know what happens when you have a bunch of unconnected nodes floating around in your brain waiting to dock…
So I experienced an unscheduled docking today while reading a draft of Erin Edwards’ dissertation proposal. What if some online communities succeed because they provide trails to valuable information resources - ala pheromones to a rich food source for ants - which make the information foraging task easier for the individual compared to foraging alone? This seems reasonable, following Coase’s notion of transaction costs (which I believe should be the foundation of all collaborative assignments in education). This would provide a rational incentive for individuals to participate in online communities, and as I think about it, probably sums up a large part of why I built a summer home in the blogosphere.
I’m sure someone will post to alert me to the dated-ness of this thought and proclaim that this unoriginal nugget has been deeply explored elsewhere. That’s great. Just remember to provide links or references when you slam me.
Posted by david at May 30, 2003 02:27 PM | TrackBack