On "Getting" the Wisdom of Crowds

Mar
21
2006

Kathy Sierra has a wonderful post on how she finally "got" the point behind The Wisdom of Crowds.

Her assumptions prior to "getting it" seem to exemplify many of the conversations I had and comments I heard while at SXSW. What I found out quickly when I started asking, was that most of the objections to embracing the idea came from people who's primary interaction with the book had been to hear its title.

I even heard this echoed from one of my co-panelists while on the panel about how she had dealt with the crowd as a librarian and absolutely didn't want them in charge of determining anything.

If all you go on is the title, you are likely envisioning (like Kathy did) consensus decisionmaking and "mobs". I say that because that's what almost everyone I asked about it said.

Yet, within the first couple of pages, the author makes a big distinction about the type of crowd he's talking about. When you ask people to contribute individually and then aggregate the results, you get a wise crowd. When you ask people as a group to agree and come up with a decision, you don't.

If you find yourself upset about the phrase "the wisdom of crowds" and haven't read the book, you should at least give Kathy's post a read.

If you decide to argue with me about this concept and you haven't done that, you won't get very far.

 

Comments on this post

Feedback is always welcome. Read some from other folks or leave your own below. Just keep things civil and remember that what you post lives on in public. Forever.

Thanks,
J

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