2013/02/22 by Kurt Luther, Casey Fiesler, Amy Bruckman · 71 citations
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Open Source Software Innovations #Wikis in Education and Collaboration #Knowledge Management and Sharing #Pipeline (software) #Computer science #Animation #Knowledge management #Shared leadership #Online community #Public relations #World Wide Web #Transactional leadership #Political science
paper · doi:10.1145/2441776.2441891
openalex publication_date 2013/02/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In this paper, we integrate theories of distributed leadership and distributed cognition to account for the roles of people and technology in online leadership. When leadership is distributed effectively, the result can be success stories like Wikipedia and Linux. However, finding a successful distribution is challenging. In the online community Newgrounds, hundreds of collaborative animation projects called "collabs" are started each year, but less than 20% are completed. We suggest that many collabs fail because leaders are overburdened and lack adequate technological support. We introduce Pipeline, a collaboration tool designed to support and transform leadership, with the goal of easing the burden on leaders of online creative projects. Through a case study of a six-week, 30-artist collaboration called Holiday Flood, we show how Pipeline supported redistributed leadership. We conclude with implications for theory and the design of social computing systems.