Book Reviews
Swarm creativity: competitive advantage through collaborative innovation networks
Peter A Gloor
ISBN: 978-0-195304-12-1 2005 224 pages Oxford University Press, USA
Peter Cebon
In this practioner-oriented book, Gloor defines Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs), teams of people with a collective vision, who collaborate in achieving a common goal by sharing ideas, information, and work. He argues that a significant proportion of important innovations have been created by COINs, rather than by closed hierarchical organizations. Examples he gives include the rise of Homo Sapiens over Neanderthals, the rise of Europe over China, the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci, the World-wide-web, and Linux. He argues further that the new internet technologies dramatically reduce the barriers to creating COINs. Consequently, we can expect them to become ubiquitous.
The first half of the book explains what COINs are, what conditions are needed to create them, and how they generate high levels of innovation. This part of the argument is, unfortunately, not nearly as clearly laid out as it could be. Notwithstanding, it is possible to infer the logic of the argument. First, he limits the model to innovations in which it is possible to express the project goals clearly and in which there is sufficient technical challenge or other source of intrinsic interest to attract people to the project voluntarily. If those two conditions are met, then the organizational problem becomes one of maintaining goal clarity, maintaining intrinsic motivation, and forstering creativity and coordination. These, Gloor argues, are best achieved with an organization structured with varying classes of membership. Those with the greatest coordination responsibility (ie most central to the organizational network) must have demonstrated both the greatest level of technical understanding of the innovation problem, and a strong commitment its solution. Furthermore, other aspects of its structure - the code of ethics defining acceptable behaviour, the operating culture, and the management style of the core group - need to have particular characteristics (which he describes) so they can facilitate three key elements of organisational process. First, a COIN should be strictly meritocratic. Opportunities, responsibility, and rewards should go to those who put in the time and demonstrate competence. Second, the operations of a COIN should be completely transparent. All information should be available to all participants. Finally, operations should be consistent. All participants should be treated equally, given their membership status. If these three elements are in place, then swarm creativity will result. Project participants will organize themselves, like a hive of bees, to produce a superior solution to the problem at hand.
The second half comprises three appendices. The first explains the relationship between COINs and other sorts of knowledge-based networks. The second presents computer tools which can be used spot, analyse and nurture COINs in an organization. The final appendix provides tools for managing knowledge flows within a COIN.
This book is better than most practitioner-oriented books in three ways. First, as a practitioner with extensive relevant experience, who has moved into an academic setting, Gloor provides examples that are both interesting and informative. Second, the three appendices are useful and make the book valuable for someone who wants to apply the ideas. Finally, it differentiates itself from other books on collaboration by taking networks seriously. The book would be improved significantly, however, if the argument was built logically, rather than being made principally by exhortation. Not only would this enable Gloor to put the pieces together much better, and consequently reduce the amount of repetition, but it would also enable him to delimit the scope of his argument much more clearly. For example, he recognizes that that the COIN model is not universal, and argues that it is optimal for disruptive innovations (Christensen 1997). However, there are two problems with this. First, the market doesn't really enter into his model at all, so it is unlikely that market discontinuities, the core of Christensen's model, will be the lynchpin of the innovations COINs produce best. Second, as Gladwell (2005) has demonstrated, collaborative networks do much better for innovations requiring lots of creativity around well-defined technical problems (such as building an operating system or copying and extending an existing product) than for innovations built on blinding fundamental insights.
Overall, I recommend the book to anyone who is interested in work organization for innovation.
References
Christensen CM (1997) The innovator's dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Gladwell M (2005) The bakeoff: Annals of Technology. The New Yorker 81(26): 000.
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