Fostering Collective Intelligence: Helping Groups Use Visualized Argumentation

Abstract

This chapter discusses lessons learned from applying visualized argumentation in realtime, face-to-face group settings. Using visualized argumentation in this manner requires special skills and considerations. Argumentation structures, especially when represented with software tools and manipulated in real time according to the needs and goals of the group using them, can be tricky to manage. Of special concern are the multiple issues involved in keeping the representations both coherent and tractable, both for immediate and later use (or re-use). This chapter focuses particularly on the role played by a facilitator - a person charged with managing both the creation and maintenance of the representation as well as the interaction of the group with it, and with each other and with the task at hand. The author has practiced such facilitation with hundreds of groups over a ten-year period and trained other practitioners in the art. The chapter provides a characterization of the practical, aesthetic, and ethical components of facilitating visualized argumentation for groups, with the goal of contributing to the development of improved means (tools, methods, and training) and to the wider spread of this competence and its benefits.