the collective intelligence of groups and communities has little to do with the intelligence of their individual members, and much more to do with the connections between them.* “The best ideas,” he writes, “come from careful and continuous social exploration . . . it is the idea flow within a community that builds the intelligence that makes it successful.” “Idea flow” is the ease with which new thoughts can permeate a group. Pentland likens it to the spread of the flu: a function of susceptibility and frequency of interaction. The key to increasing the “contagion” is trust and connectivity
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