On 18 November 2020, Émile Servan-Schreiber shared Innov’Acteurs’ announcement of the Carrefour de l’Innovation Participative. The organiser advertised three online sessions, on 19 November, 26 November and 4 December, and a B SMART interview in which Muriel Garcia spoke with Jean-Marc Sylvestre. The organiser’s event white paper identifies Servan-Schreiber as a roundtable participant, connecting his endorsement with a speaking role.
A roundtable on the conditions for collective intelligence
The Innov’Acteurs white paper names Servan-Schreiber, identified as Hypermind co-founder and author of Supercollectif, among the roundtable participants. It also names Martin Duval of Bluenove, Pierre Nougué of ECOSYS Group and Renata Coura of the Empowerment Center. The theme concerned new frontiers of participatory innovation.
The report attributes to Servan-Schreiber an argument that collective intelligence depends on connections between people. It stresses independence of thought, diversity and allowing others to express themselves. Bringing capable people together is not sufficient if the process encourages them to conform before their different knowledge can contribute.
Moving participation beyond a physical meeting
In his introduction to the white paper, Innov’Acteurs president Jean-Charles Guillet says the pandemic forced changes in workplace interaction and prompted the association to digitise the event. He describes three main stages rather than an abandoned annual gathering. The report preserves a discussion of methods and a record of the 2020 awards, giving the event a documentary life beyond its live sessions.
Woolley and colleagues’ 2010 Science study linked small-group performance with social sensitivity and balanced speaking turns. That research did not evaluate Carrefour’s online format. Participation involves more than simply making a digital connection available.
Innovation and forecasting use different tests
For forecasting, the useful lesson is about how a group’s information reaches a shared answer. Our Institut Diderot account explores the same organisational question. An innovation event can create room for independent contributions, but its success cannot be inferred from a future-outcome scoring rule unless it actually makes and records forecasts.
The Carrefour discussion connects participatory innovation with the design of a useful collective. Moving the gathering online changed how participants met, while the roundtable kept attention on how they exchanged information and retained independent views. The white paper gives those ideas a concrete event setting. It reports the speakers’ arguments without measuring an improvement in participants’ performance.
