Blogs and Wikis and Problem Solving

I have spent most of my adult life involved in the computer industry beginning as a computer programmer, then performing systems analysis, followed by consulting work, and finally moving into education, teaching undergraduate and graduate computer science and information technology courses. The evolution from batch processing systems to the Internet we now take for granted has been amazing. Back in the good old days, the operating system and other computer programs controlled what was happening inside a computer. The programs determined what would happen next. The programs would ask for data when they needed it. Human computer operators mounted tapes and disk drives when requested by the program. The human was subservient to the computer. Then changes began to occur.

First, programs began to appear that did not control the data that was being entered. This was the advent of the spreadsheet. A foundation program was provided which allowed users to place data of all types in cells of a spreadsheet. Then the user, using relatively simple instructions, described what the spreadsheet needed to do such as adding columns of numbers or doing statistical analyses. With these spreadsheet programs, users began to take over control of computers. Next, windows-like operating systems and applications began to appear. Instead of a program controlling what was to be done next, the user could select an icon on a screen in order to tell the computer what to do next. Now the user had even more control of the computer.

We now have the Internet. The newest applications available are called Web 2.0 tools, allowing users to connect, collaborate, publish, discuss, evaluate, negotiate, and create new knowledge on the World Wide Web. Two of the more popular tools are blogs and wikis. The popularity of these tools is astounding. According to Kevin Kelly in the August 2005 issue of Wired magazine, the number of web pages is greater than 600 billion. “In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population.” The growth continues unabated in 2008. What is amazing is that all of this has been created by individuals like you and me, not giant publishing houses. Through the use of blogs, wikis, and other tools, the individual is now deeply involved in knowledge creation and sharing that knowledge with others. No longer are the few experts determining what is to be published and read. Consumers are also producers of content. Kelly wonders what will happen when the number of producers surpasses the number of consumers, when people are creating blog entries, for example, but not reading. He says that is alright. He explains by saying that “the producers are the audience, the act of making is the act of watching, and every link is both a point of departure and a destination.”

In his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki states that giving problems to be solved to a large and diverse enough group, the group will provide solutions that are intellectually superior in comparison to the individual expert, no matter how wise and informed he might be. Is it possible that our massive Internet of blogs, wikis, web pages, and other sites, controlled by over a billion individuals just might be the problem solving power we need to solve the complex issues currently in our global society?