How We Are Smarter Than Me:
An In-Depth Look Into Mass Collaboration and a
Review of Don Tapscott's Book Wikinomics
Speaker: Julia Loughran, President, ThoughtLink, Inc.

Whether you have contributed to a definition on Wikipedia or placed a phone call to help select the next "American Idol" contest winner, you are a member of a distributed team of people—a team that most likely numbers in the thousands or even millions.

Mass collaboration is changing how we work and process information. It will play a major role in how we compete in the global marketplace and how we will determine the world's next rising stars.

In this interactive discussion, Julia Loughran will highlight some of the key points from Don Tapscott's book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and provide additional examples of how this phenomenon is cropping up in all varieties of domains.

The title of her talk comes from an innovative project on the Internet in which a collection of people (including professors, students, publishers, and business people) is using the power of mass collaboration to write books. The books contain best practices for business. (By the way, the first book, We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business, is completed, and participants are working on the second, focusing on sales and marketing.) The secret to their success is letting the world at large help write these books. For more information on this interesting initiative, see http://www.wearesmarter.org

Speaker: Julia Loughran is a co-founder and president of ThoughtLink, Inc., a business specializing in research related to team understanding, and in enhancing individual and organizational effectiveness via technologies, including games and simulations.

Ms. Loughran is a contributor to the Training Transformation (T2) strategic and implementation plans of the Department of Defense and is an active member of a senior advisory group assisting the Department of Homeland Security in the development and implementation of a national training and exercise strategy for domestic preparedness. Julia Loughran holds a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence and has extensive experience in distributed simulations, virtual environments, and games.

ThoughtLink, Inc., a woman-owned small business, helps organizations use technology to increase team productivity, particularly teams whose members are separated geographically. To do this, ThoughtLink uses innovative applications of existing Web-based tools, collaboration technologies, wireless solutions, and games, allowing organizations to overcome the physical and organizational separation of distributed/virtual teams. ThoughtLink teams, with a breadth and depth of experience in technical consulting, software integration, and experiment design, execution, and analysis, help organizations streamline the technology selection process.

ThoughtLink’s areas of expertise include leveraging Internet technologies for education and training, using games for research and analysis, increasing collaboration among virtual teams, and maximizing shared situational awareness. ThoughtLink has evaluated training/exercise solutions and conducted research for a variety of government, international, and nongovernmental organizations, including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, individual military services, Canada’s Lester Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, and the Center for Humanitarian Cooperation.

For more information on Julia Loughran and ThoughtLink's work on virtual teams, see http://www.thoughtlink.com.
Agenda 

12:45 pm	Check-In
1:00 pm	Welcome & Announcements
1:05 pm	Tech Brief: Securing Your E-Mail Access on a Web Page; Speaker: Neal Grotenstein
1:15 pm	Main Presentation: Wikinomics and Mass Collaboration; Speaker: Julia Loughran
2:45 pm	Q&A
2:55 pm	Closing announcements
3:00 pm	Informal queries, conversation, networking

Presentation Description | Speaker Information | Meeting Agenda | Location  | Sponsors |  Registration 

Location: One-half block south of the Cineplex Odeon Uptown movie theatre on Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. Metrorail--Cleveland Park Station on the Red Line (on Connecticut Avenue, just 1.5 blocks north of meeting site) 

Parking: Very small lot, off Macomb St., to left of library. 

Free and open to all 

Several times a year a smaller group (usually about 8 to 12) goes to Nanny O'Brien's (directly across the street from the library at 3319 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 202-686-9189, open noon Saturday to 2 am Sunday) or another local establishment for continued conversation, networking, and refreshment following the meeting. (Participants pay for their own beverages and food.) 

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