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Principal Investigator John Williams
Learn about the challenges faced by the industry and the potential solutions and technologies that are made available by MIT researchers.
Daniel Frey Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems
The future of business is swarm business – whether it’s at Uber, Airbnb, Tesla, or Apple, it’s not about being a fearless leader, but about creating a swarm that works together in collective consciousness to create great things that change the world. In Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs), small teams of intrinsically motivated people enabled by the Internet work together to invent something radically new. A successful swarm channels the competitive energies of all stakeholders towards collaboration. I also propose a collaboration scorecard made up of seven key variables – “honest signals” – indicative of creative swarms, drawn from hundreds of industry projects. The “seven honest signals of collaboration” are “strong leadership”, “balanced contribution”, “rotating leadership”, “responsiveness”, “honest sentiment”, “shared context”, and “social capital”. I will illustrate these “honest signals of collaboration” using numerous industry examples ranging from startups to innovation teams at the R&D departments of Fortune 500 firms to teams of Healthcare researchers and patients.
Assistant