My favorite Wisdom of Crowdsquotes

Mixed by Maarten Cannaerts

Images: www.sxc.hu– “The wisdom of crowds” was written

by James Surowiecki

Groups do not have to be dominated by exceptionally

intelligent people in order to be smart

Madness is the exception in

individuals but the rule in groups

(F. Nietsche)

The best collective decisions are the product of

disagreement and contest

not consensus or compromise.

There are four conditions that characterize wise crowds…

(each person should have some private information, even

if it’s just an eccentric

interpretation of the known facts)

1. Diversity of opinion

2. Independence

(people’s opinions are not

determined by the opinions

of those around them)

3. Decentralization

(people are able to

specialize and draw on

local knowledge)

4. Aggregation

(some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision)

Companies have been surprisingly unwilling to improve their decision making by tapping into the

collective wisdom of their employees.

What makes a system successful is its

ability to recognize losers and kill them quickly

It is better for reputation

to fail conventionally than to succeed

unconventionally.

Invention is an individual enterprise,

but selecting among inventions

is a collective one.

Encouraging people to make

incorrect guesses makes the group as a whole smarter.

One key to successful group decisions is getting

people to pay much less attention

to what everyone

else is saying.

Paying taxes is individually costly but collectively beneficial.

Today’s complex problem solving requires multiple

perspectives

The days of Leonardo da Vinci are

over.

(E. Wenger)

Confirmation bias causes decision makers to unconsciously seek those bits of information that confirm their underlying intuitions.

Endless layers of management

can make people less willing to

take

responsibility

for their own work

[There is a] correlation between upward mobility and not telling the boss about things that had gone wrong.

Certain kinds of information can make

things worse – not all information is created equal.