Collective mind or community boost

In Szeged, Hungary we have a very new IT (and childcare, yeah ...) complex - called Agora - near to our office. Basically it's going to be a hub for professionals. We really needed this. It hosts events such as SzegedTech, the monthly web development meetup, Szeged Startup Meetup or Szeged UX / Design meetups. I think the local Drupal user group will be there soon too.


This weekend I've attended on the (almost) regular creative coding day. And we have the Drupal code sprints as well. So many events. Few years ago we had one or two of them. It's so great to see growing these events like pimples on a teenager. What I'd like to say today is how grateful I am about the people I'm surrounded here (and on the internet - yes, time to accept internet is real, not digital).

Topics on collective mind go crazy. It's an amazing territory. Do you know what is an organism? For me an even more interesting thing is that single functional entities aim to cooperate to others in order to aim higher goals, like survival or spread. At this moment I think that experimenting with variations, mutations just a way it works and nothing sophistical. For me collective mind is the same. People tend to cooperate when they want to achieve.

Many times when I observe my environment I see certain patterns doing their things. It's really not an only-human behavior, it's random, it's physical and emotional. But the thing is, these things acting as triggers, or small puzzle pieces. You have problems in your mind and often don't find the solution. Not because you're dumb (at least not all the time) - rather you just cannot see the pattern of how the initial state can be transformed to a solution. Like in Lego - when I was a kid I was playing Lego all the time. I had pieces that had to connect, I knew where they belong to, I know how it will look - I just didn't know what's between them - what's the connector look like. So you knee down and crawl your ass off 'till you find something that works. That's all you need.

Funny when you steer your mind to the right way by telling it loud. I may wrong - but I think it's a little bit of the fictional friendship syndrome. Mastering this skill helped me so many times I couldn't count.

But then when it's about problems you have community. The collective mind. See StackOverflow. See your workplace. Remember all the events you've been. Nobody has the luxury to be the smartest alone. Listening is poor man's creativity. And creativity is everything. I'm grateful to work with astonishingly smart guys. I'm grateful to meet genius minds on our meetups. And having internet - no words.

On the Singularity podcast (which I love so much) they told people in technology doubts everything - by nature. And I think that's the key when you listen. Doubt yourself. Our company culture embrace brainstorming and I like it a lot. It's hilarious what phases an initial idea goes through sometimes. But it's a natural mutation.

My advice: be there, be loud, contribute, merge. The superorganism is waiting for you ;)

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If you have anything to say about collective mind, please, leave a comment.

Peter