A web platform for collective intelligence
Discovering the Power of a Web Platform Specifically Designed for Collective Intelligence Contribution, Through a Concrete Example.
A Digital Solution to Overcome the Challenges of In-Person Meetings
I developed a web platform for contribution as part of a project I had to support in a very short timeframe: the bid for the city of Saint-Denis to become the European Capital of Culture in 2028. My role was to co-lead the media college, whose objective was to gather ideas from local stakeholders. The challenge was to envision the future of media in the Saint-Denis and Plaine-Commune area, projecting ourselves to 2030—eight years ahead—and to anticipate avenues for cultural democracy, in connection with media and digital technologies.
I had only three to four months to carry out this collective intelligence gathering, which later served as the foundation for the authors of the project to draft the proposal submitted to the European Commission. This was in 2022, a time when it was particularly difficult to bring people together. We tried several times to organize in-person meetings, but these proved to be laborious, poorly attended, and gave the impression that progress was stagnant. It was then that I conceived and proposed the idea of a contributive web platform, which ultimately bore fruit. This is the example I use here to illustrate the power of this method for collective intelligence.
The Digital Tool to Embrace Diversity
We needed varied and diverse contributions, which meant accommodating people with different profiles, including those who might not have much time to dedicate to such efforts but could still offer valuable insights. I therefore proposed several videoconference meetings—four or five in total, each lasting an hour and a half—where participants could contribute to the media college for this bid project. Attendance at all meetings was not mandatory, which is one of the key aspects of this collective intelligence approach.
Participants would log in, and I had set up a digital contribution tool. They received a link in the chat, along with individual login credentials, allowing them to become contributors while being identified as themselves. I used the open-source software SPIP, installed on a server I own and manage, ensuring data sovereignty and independence from any multinational corporation. The interface was very simple and hierarchical, and mastering the publishing tool took no more than five minutes.
The first step was to invite each participant to introduce themselves. Instead of a traditional roundtable, each person was asked to create an article in the “People” section, writing their name and a short biography, and then publishing it. Within five minutes, everyone’s biographies appeared on the screen. This way, the tool was quickly adopted without any hurdles, thanks to its simplicity.
Next, we conducted a brainstorming session on the topics and themes we wanted to address during the meeting. During this oral exchange, I took notes using mind mapping with screen sharing, allowing participants to see their ideas transcribed in real time. In about fifteen minutes, we identified three working themes for the session, each to be discussed for twenty minutes. I then created a section for each theme, and participants were invited to write an article on the topic, adding their ideas and contributions.
The Power of a Shared Moment
Being together in a shared timeframe was a powerful driver of engagement. Even those who were initially reluctant to write found themselves producing interesting content in just fifteen minutes. Each person’s contributions appeared in the same section, and it was possible to click on someone’s name to see all their publications. After fifteen minutes of writing, we spent five minutes discussing the topic before moving on to the next theme, repeating the same exercise. The videoconference concluded after an hour and a half, with a significant number of rich and detailed contributions.
Those who wished to could return to the platform outside of the meetings to add further elements. Some did, but we know how challenging this can be without the encouragement of the group. This is why online surveys often seem ineffective to me: they only reach highly motivated individuals and fail to fully harness the potential of collective intelligence.
The Digital Tool to Foster Long-Term Connections
In subsequent meetings, participants could consult the platform in advance to review previous contributions. At the start of each session, we provided an overview of what had been produced, then defined three new themes after everyone introduced themselves, as in the first session.
The strength of this tool lies in its ability to activate collective intelligence through structured, accessible, and readable digital traces. Even those who participated only once could connect with the body of knowledge already produced and add their own ideas. This is not a mere juxtaposition of ideas but a true collective construction, made possible by interactive writing. This dynamic would not have been achievable with an oral-only approach.
After four sessions of this kind, the final document contained a multitude of well-structured ideas. In fact, during the last meeting, there was a reevaluation of the section structure and modifications to the logic of organizing ideas within the tool.
For Sustainable Data Management
The open-source software SPIP requires some technical skill to use, but it is a very mature tool, one of the first Content Management Systems (CMS) dating back to 2000. Widely used in France, it benefits from an active community. The data is hosted on a server under my control, with regular backups, making it easy to preserve and share with national or regional archives. This control over data is essential, as writing constitutes memory, and the longevity of digital heritage is just as important as that of printed heritage, including when it comes to digital heritage of collective intelligence.
This translation maintains the original meaning and structure while adapting it to English. Let me know if you need further adjustments!
Archive of the contributive web platform for the Media College of the Périfééries project
Discover the platform :
https://www.benoitlabourdette.com/_docs/projets/2022/2022_perifeeries_college_medias/
In the context of businesses, as well as in associative, social, artistic, cultural mediation, cultural action, initial or professional training, and social action settings, mobilizing the collective intelligence of participants is a very powerful lever. It enables mutual enrichment, improved relationships, stronger cohesion, the emergence of ideas, the invention of projects, greater engagement, and more.
Collective intelligence tools are also powerful democratic tools. They have been largely developed within the field of popular education, where the contribution of each individual is valued far more than in the national education system, which, in France, unfortunately often remains too traditional in its approaches.
I have frequently participated in collective intelligence workshops, and I have facilitated, applied, refined, adapted, and even invented a number of them. Here, you will find a collection of tools that I have personally used, which are integrated into the methods I propose, supported by real-life use cases. I believe these tools are highly worth sharing, as I have seen so many beneficial effects from them! I often find myself thinking, during collective moments such as conferences, for example: it’s a shame to limit ourselves to passive listening—all these minds gathered together could, if mobilized more effectively, produce something greater collectively.
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The Shared Secret
When the intimate becomes collective: a method of collective intelligence through whispering, listening and creation.
Creating a space where the intimacy of a whisper becomes a collective work. Engaging empathic listening, emotional regulation and creative (…) -
The Implementation of Methods
When Words Are No Longer Enough: Toward an Embodied Transformation of Professional Practices
Methods often fail because they remain discursive. Advocating for cooperation while dominating, speaking of ecology while imposing: the (…) -
Cooperative Narratives
Creating polyphonic narrative devices to transform academic knowledge into living and operative knowledge.
How can we overcome the limits of academic narrative to create truly shared knowledge? A concrete experience of collective writing devices that (…) -
For an ecology of dispensability
Rethinking authority and transmission.
Faced with the vertical management that dominates and alienates, another path exists: that of an authority that aims for its own dispensability, (…) -
The Group Flag
Between cohesion and freedom: the fertile paradox of shared culture.
How can a common symbol liberate singularities? I propose here a reflection on the paradoxical role of the “group flag” function as guarantor of (…) -
The State of Openness
For democratic and transformative facilitation.
How can we cultivate a welcoming posture that allows everyone to contribute fully? Openness is not a method but an inner state that transforms our (…) -
Formalizing the informal
Informality, essential to learning, resists structure while calling for it. How to tame it.
The absence of informal aspects in distance learning forces us to rethink its fundamental nature. This constraint becomes a laboratory for (…) -
Framework, purpose and transgression
So as not to get lost along the way.
When the framework of a project becomes inadequate, transgressing it often allows for better achievement of the objectives by prioritizing lived (…) -
Speech takes on PowerPoint
For more useful collective exchanges.
PowerPoint presentations hinder collective intelligence by rigidifying exchanges—this is well-known and documented—yet they remain almost (…) -
Collective surveying of texts
Enrich a text with the intelligence of other readers.
Collective text surveying is a method where a group divides a document into sections, with each subgroup working on one part before sharing their (…) -
Potential development space
Collective innovation method.
The potential development space is a method of collective innovation based on intuitive encounters, without predefined objectives, where mutual (…) -
Mapping the Collective Territory
Geographical Identification of Connections within a Group.
This activity allows visualizing connections and origins within a group by creating a human world map. By positioning themselves according to (…) -
Web platform for professional training
An astonishingly powerful device.
Following the democratization of remote work, it has been necessary to rethink approaches to professional training. This proven method offers a (…) -
Digital traces as a link
The power of digital to bring people together.
The immediate sharing of activity traces (recordings, photos, mind maps) via an accessible digital space strengthens the connection between (…) -
Listener contributions via digital tool
Unleash the power of the brains involved.
In a conference where one or more people address a large audience, it is common, after the presentation, to have a moment of discussion or Q&A (…) -
The sustainable links workshop
Create meaningful connections in collaborative workshops.
This “Workshop of Sustainable Connections” encourages the creation of lasting bonds between participants in collective events. Each person (…) -
Collaborative mind-mapping
An instituting, evolving form of writing.
Collaborative mind mapping is a visual and tree-like note-taking method, projected in real-time during meetings or training sessions. This (…) -
World Café
A tried-and-tested technique that’s always being reinvented.
The World Café is a collective intelligence technique that fosters the collaborative creation of ideas and concrete projects. Through successive (…) -
Thematic groups
Elaborate together.
This method is a simplified and faster variation of the World Café method, which I have successfully implemented and tested. The goal is for each (…) -
A web platform for collective intelligence
Support collective action with a specific digital tool.
Discovering the Power of a Web Platform Specifically Designed for Collective Intelligence Contribution, Through a Concrete Example. A Digital (…) -
Exchanges in pairs
To give everyone a voice.
A collective intelligence exercise that stimulates thinking and listening. Working in pairs, each participant builds his or her own argument on a (…) -
Book synthesis
Boosting professional training in collective intelligence.
How to use collective intelligence in professional training in a way that is not anecdotal but enriches the subject in depth? Bringing a moment of (…) -
The importance of expression
Identifying an essential path to emancipation.
Expression, often overlooked, is a key element for individual and collective emancipation. By providing a legitimate framework, appropriate tools, (…) -
Reception
Interaction practice exercise.
An activity to explore welcoming and interaction: each person alternates between welcoming and being welcomed, experiences strong emotions, and (…) -
Secret tips
In-depth mutual enrichment.
A powerful exercise to nurture creativity and collaboration: each participant presents a project or idea in 3 minutes, then receives intimate, (…) -
Collective bibliography
An encounter with oneself through books.
This activity is very useful at the beginning of meetings, gatherings, or workdays. The idea is to bring a number of books that address the topic (…) -
Sit Stand
Playfully identifying the links between participants.
Sit Stand, a playful and profound exercise to identify the concept of community. The “Sit Stand” exercise is often presented as an icebreaker, (…)
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Web platform for professional training An astonishingly powerful device.
Following the democratization of remote work, it has been necessary to rethink approaches to professional training. This proven method offers a (…) -
Collaborative assessment of screen literacy education in Nouvelle-Aquitaine Collective intelligence methodology, digital platform, and collaborative publication for ALCA (2026).
ALCA, Agence Livre, Cinéma et Audiovisuel en Nouvelle-Aquitaine, entrusted me with the methodological support for a collaborative assessment of (…) -
Collaborative mind-mapping An instituting, evolving form of writing.
Collaborative mind mapping is a visual and tree-like note-taking method, projected in real-time during meetings or training sessions. This (…) -
Regional meetings Passeurs d’images Rhône Alpes : production of a collective film for 80 people Digital Participative Projects
Collaborative creation of a film for 80 people.The Regional Meetings of Image Passengers of the Rhône-Alpes Region, organized by Acrira (Amaury (…) -
Digital is not immaterial Elements of understanding.
The digital world is much more material than we think. It seems important to me to take the measure of it in a concrete way, it is what can allow (…)
