The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Posted on March 19th, 2005
This book starts off strong with a compelling premise: large groups of people can be smarter than individuals working alone. Alone, we make imperfect judgements based on emotion and often limited information. But with the right sort of aggregation our collective intelligence can take us much farther:
One of the striking things about the wisdom of crowds is that even though its effects are all around us, it's easy to miss, and, even when it's seen, it can be hard to accept. Most of us, whether as voters or investors or consumers or managers, believe that valuable knowledge is concentrated in a very few hands. We assume that the key to solving problems or making good decisions is finding that one right person who will have the answer... The argument of this book is that chasing the expert is a mistake, and a costly one at that. We should stop hunting and ask the crowd.
So that's the thesis. The rest of the book is given over to examples that illustrate the thesis at work-- from traffic patterns to the stock market to democracy. Reading the theory was the high point of this book. Reading the supporting evidence was more like a downward spiral moving farther and farther away from that incredibly interesting core.
I think I expected a different book than the one I was reading. I accepted the theory early on and wanted to jump straight over to practical applications. The supporting evidence ended up getting in my way, if only because it applied the crowds idea to contexts that didn't hold any intrinsic appeal to me.
Related links:
Tapping the Wisdom of Crowds: An Integrated Model ETech: Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds