Social intelligence in the age of networks

Abstract

The author explores the concept of ‘social intelligence’. She suggests that, in the world of digital commerce, it may be defined as ‘insight which is based on collective understanding of work practices’. She offers three scenarios to support the suggestion that the World Wide Web allows new forms of insight to emerge as it greatly extends the toolkit and the content base of business intelligence. The scenarios explore three activities: ‘social browsing’, ‘social formatting’ and ‘social filtering’, that are examples of social intelligence activities in the world of the virtual workplace.