Wisdom of Crowds

Based on my Many-to-Many post a few days ago, invoking "the wisdom of crowds" feels a little bit obvious. But I've had the pleasure to engage with Jim Surowiecki several times over the last few years -- at Michael Mauboussin's Thought Leader Forum, and once at the Santa Fe Institute -- and his ideas merit repetition. And if a speaker at a conference I've worked at happens to support my vision for the future of conferences, all the better!


You've heard the concept by now that "the Many" can be smarter than the Few, even if the Few have higher IQ's. Jim puts several important qualifiers on situations that make this actually hold true. This is an overview of the Wisdom of Crowds theory that he gave in 2004.

So when is the crowd smarter? The crowd must include a diversity of perspectives. The members of the crowd must think independently. And there must be some way of aggregating the independent, diverse opinions of the group.

As you might imagine, conferences tend to fail this test on all fronts. Speakers convey "one message", and attendees are quizzed to see if they "got the message". Conferences ask attendees to ingest and comply, not think independently. And conferences hardly ask people for their opinions, must less aggregate them into something meaningful and creative.

Crowds can be diverse, creative and powerful. Conferences can too!