TOPICS INCLUDE:
• Organizational architectures
• Networked networks
• Identity and trust
• Peer and the cloud
• Loss of control vs. resiliency
• Open-source processes and management
• Expertise vs. amateur culture
• Serendipity vs. groupthink
• Peer production and content
CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
Thanks to the Internet, we’ve been able to increase the number of people, and peers, in our immediate circle with whom we can collaborate and do business. What new technologies and platforms will help us tap into this power of peer? Will the new peer culture truly work in the long run, or is “peer” a transition to another model of cooperation and partnership? Is there an upper limit to the number of people who can be involved in successful collective activities?
Does an overabundance of connections reduce diversity and keep radical ideas from taking hold? Can high-tech crowdsourcing, in which human-curated and algorithmically filtered content are combined, provide us with relief from cognitive overload?
We are beginning to see a more nuanced story behind the startling success of large-scale networks of people connected through the Internet. We’ve seen activities that use these interactions coordinated with scalable network platforms. What are the lessons to be learned from these interactions?
Systems benefit by engaging users in their creation, adding feedback and self-correction. However, systems are often more structured than a simple mass of individuals. Is collaboration giving way to richer interactions within systems? We tend to institutionalize pure peer models and move toward hierarchical structures, so can we expect to see hybrid models on the horizon? Are we productively moving beyond the individual to the power of teams, and even collections of teams?
Crowds can reinforce stability and create resilient, predictable systems, but they can also end up at cross purposes. Are crowds trustworthy, or do they bring us groupthink? Will we make machines our peers and partners, or will we allow them to become peers only to each other? For projects spanning organizational boundaries, identity—especially relationship-based and trust-based identity—will underpin how people understand and represent their roles and responsibilities to the group.
Open-innovation models often work effectively when designed for a particular task; they become a mix of ideas flowing from a decentralized crowd, while a core group of peers makes the final decisions. Online businesses have been built around social networks, in whi
TRIUMF – Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics
http://www.triumf.ca/
October 7, 2010
Located on the campus of the University of British Columbia, TRIUMF is one of the world’s leading subatomic physics laboratories. TRIUMF houses the world’s largest superconducting cyclotron. It brings together physicists and interdisciplinary talent, sophisticated technical resources, and commercial partners in a way that has established the laboratory as a global model of success. Its large user community is composed of international teams of scientists, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students, and has a staff of 350 scientists, engineers, and technicians, and a further 150 postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and co-op students.
Research areas at TRIUMF include:
• Nuclear medicine
• Molecular and materials science
• Rare-isotope beams
• Particle physics
• Accelerator physics
• Detector development
BRAIN RESEARCH CENTRE (http://www.brain.ubc.ca/)
The Brain Research Centre (BRC) is an independent research facility whose organizational structure maximizes the potential for significant discoveries and development of effective new therapies. BRC employs a multidisciplinary approach, combined with a scientific philosophy of cooperation and collaboration among the researchers, physicians, and technicians who are exploring common origins and overlapping features of neurological and psychiatric disorders. BRC includes more than 200 investigators with broad expertise in neuroscience research.
BRC is built around six pillars of neuroscience research:
• neurodegeneration (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS)
• multiple sclerosis
• mental health and addiction
• stroke
• neurotrama
• vision
In addition, two broad research themes encompass the programs outlined above: the learning brain and the aging brain. The learning brain theme covers areas such as development, synaptic plasticity, genetics and evolution, computational approaches, and rehabilitation. The aging brain theme includes studies of normal aging from a molecular perspective, molecular strategies for ameliorating the effects of degeneration, studies of neuroendocrine disorders associated with aging, and studies of memory, motor, and cognitive function.
THE INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTING, INFORMATION, AND COGNITIVE SYSTEMS (ICICS) (www.icics.ubc.ca/index.php)
ICICS is a multidisciplinary research institute that promotes collaborative research in advanced technology systems. Its 150+ faculty members hail from such diverse departments as computer science, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical and biological engineering, psychology, music, statistics, mining engineering, linguistics, commerce, forestry, and medicine.
Our tour will take us to two research areas:
ADVANCED COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGIES
ICICS’ 3-D interactive glass screen, one of the largest in the world, is a testbed for innovations in collaboration technology. We’ll view technologies that overcome some of the navigation problems inherent in very large displays, including overhead motion sensors that create lifelike shadows which can "touch" all areas of the display.
3-D VIDEO RESEARCH
ICICS researchers are developing methods for converting video from 2-D to 3-D that aim at real-time conversion (receiver) and non-real-time conversion (transmitter) applications. We will see demonstrations of methods for capturing 3-D content, which can then be easily shown on autostereoscopic displays (displays without glasses) using techniques based on parallax barriers and lenticular arrays.