What is platform design?

There is a great deal of power in well designed networks that are free to self-organize.  This creates a platform for solving complex problems and accomplishing together what cannot be achieved independently.  If I've learned anything thus far in life, it's that controlling things squelches creativity and destroys relationships.  There has been lots of research in the social sciences (and when I figure out how to post those references I'll do that!) indicating when we create an environment that fosters interpersonal safety, transparency, and integrity--trust is built within the community.  Trust increases the capacity to take risks and fear is reduced.

So how can we create this sort of environment for Collaborate2Cure (C2C)?  The process starts by identifying the various stakeholders and considering the desired outcomes for C2C from the short term (week to week) and for the long term (months to years) and work backwards from there.  Once we understand these desired outcomes, we can propose behaviors that will achieve these outcomes.   Behaviors are shaped by governance or policies that are established on a personal, group and global basis with in the C2C portal. Incentives can then be created to engage various stakeholders to put in the time and energy to do the behaviors.  All of these structures and processes are connected by feed back loops that are designed to create network effects that help the system to grow and evolve in response to the external and internal environments with in the limits of healthy C2C homeostasis.

So lets start by clearly defining the problem.  What are we trying to overcome by establishing C2C?  Your thoughts?