James Surowiecki’s book, the Wisdom of Crowds lays out an interesting study of how large groups of diverse and independent individuals make better collective decisions than the “smartest” individual in the group. A crowd can accurately determine the number of jelly beans in a jar or estimate the value of a company. As James lays out in his book, a crowd produces a remarkably accurate depiction of “now,” the aggregation of all information and opinion on a given topic at a precise moment in time.
However, that aggregated picture will prevent true innovations arising from the aggregation of a crowd. An innovation represents a shift, a fundamentally new way of looking at the world and solving a problem. Innovations take people by surprise—they are unexpected and arise from a minority viewpoint of the world. Given the aggregative nature of a crowd, the collective picture of now will skew towards the majority opinion. Innovation does not happen in the majority; innovation happens in the fringes and upsets the majority viewpoint, altering the group’s aggregated viewpoint. A crowd can certainly seize upon a new idea and quickly assimilate it into the collective view, but don’t mistake assimilation for actual creation.
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