Collective IQ

Collective IQ is a concept developed by Douglas Engelbart to describe the problem-solving capacity of an organization or society as a whole, rather than the sum of individual intelligences within it. Engelbart argued that collective intelligence is not a spontaneous property of groups but a learnable, improvable capability — one that can be enhanced through the right tools, training, and organizational commitment. He founded the Bootstrap Institute to research and promote methods for raising collective IQ, believing that the world's most pressing problems require not smarter individuals but smarter organizations. The concept challenges the methodological individualism of both economics and cognitive science by treating organizational capability as a distinct variable worthy of systematic design.