false 68143 0385721706 9780385721707 1080 184 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170686255m/68143.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68143.The_Wisdom_of_Crowds 38391 James Surowiecki 1202 201 5 8 false Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sun Apr 08 11:10:48 -0700 2007 Wed Dec 16 17:42:55 -0800 2009
The four essential conditions that make up a smart or wise crowd are:
- Diversity of Opinion
Each person must have some private information that he/she brings to the group. Their own interpretation or their own understanding of the problem space or a related problem space.
- Independence
People hold to their own reasoning to some degree
- Decentralization
Individuals are able to specialize and draw on their local knowledge. Someone is going to be closest to a certain aspect of the problem space and this is what is meant by local knowledge.
- Aggregation
The means to synthesize the thoughts of the team in to a collective decision.

All four need to be met in order for the crowd to be wise. If you experience in life has been that crowds are dumb, changes are one of these four conditions were missing.

In order to reorient yourself to what Surowiecki is saying, it may require an entirely new framing of your world and some are just not willing to do that.

The book is fantastic and required reading for people in a leadership position.]]>