1.25

Personal thoughts on crowds after reading The Wisdom of Crowds's Wikipedia page.

So as not to confuse anyone, when I refer to the "crowd" I am defining it in an ambiguous manner so that it may describe a group of random individuals who do not know one another, yet are all participating in an activity for the same purpose (such as the example given in the book and quoted in the wiki page where a group of fair attendees guess the weight of an ox) or one in which they are part of a group formed entirely for the purpose of making a decision.

From my personal experience and much like some of the studies referenced in the book, I have noticed that a group of completely random individuals will often come to majority decision closely resembling the "correct" decision (if applicable to the situation of course). I have far more intimate experience working with a crowd designed to accomplish some goal, be they a work organization or a group in school. I have noticed that just as the page said, the success of these crowds depends on the members comprising the crowd.

Unfortunately, much of my personal experience with this type of group often lead to somewhat disastrous or unintended negative outcomes. Each and every time it did fail, it could almost always be attributed to certain members comprising the crowd. From a work perspective, an incompetent leader will produce a greater catastrophe than any other member of the group can possibly imagine. On the other hand, a good leader can lead a crowd to the best outcome the crowd is attempting to achieve.

The same applies to the normal members of the crowd. Typically there will always be some degree of members in the crowd who do not contribute as much as the others, this of course can be due to various reasons such as shyness or apathy, but provided the other members of the crowd are capable they can usually pick up the slack imposed by these members.

Cheers,

Eric Summers