The collaborative use of technological resources and
utilizing collective intelligence is a subject in our networked society which
will have implications we can only now dream of. Examples of human
collaboration and information outbreak’s in social networks continue to
increase as the reach of digital information penetrates deeper into society.
Reaching back to when the Internet first became accessible to larger numbers of
people there has been a spontaneous emergence of using social networks and
communication technologies for both good and bad. One of those examples is when
a Computer Scientist named Jim Grey was lost at sea while sailing off the coast
of San Francisco in 2007.
Jim Gray was a scientist who had a lot of friends when he
disappeared at sea in early 2007. His friends and colleagues quickly began
discussing ways to mobilize their skills and resources to help rescue him. What
unfolded was an unprecedented civilian search and rescue effort that supported
the already ongoing Coast Guard mission in locating him. The people that came
forward to help included computer scientists, oceanographers, engineers,
astronomers, business leaders, graduate students and many others who wanted to
assist in any way they could. Jim Gray’s extensive social network of both
friends and colleagues is not what the average person would likely have
available yet it is a fascinating story of how a team came together to organize
and help the Coast Guard in their search efforts.
Conducting a maritime search and rescue mission is extremely
challenging, even for the most experienced and trained people. The vast
distances of the open ocean, weather and ocean currents make the probability of
success minimal. Those facts did not deter the network of volunteers willing to
contribute their individual expertise in any way they could. The resources
available for the ad-hoc team that emerged was deep, both technologically and
financially. It included scientists from NASA, large technology firms such as
Google and high ranking military officials. These challenges did not deter the
brainpower that gathered to save the life of a single man.
They were able to gather satellite imagery data, coordinate
flights over the area and manage the large flow of information being provided
by all those involved. The complexity of such large amounts of data and
organizing it in a useful way is the realm of the computer and information
scientists. What started as an amateur and completely organic rescue effort for
a friend evolved into an experiment in the collaboration and collective
intelligence of a wide reaching social network. Unfortunately they were never
able to find either Jim Gray or his vessel.
