StarAstrologer - Books : The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
Price: $122.22 Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9780316861731
ISBN: 0316861731
Label: Little, Brown
Manufacturer: Little, Brown
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: June 03, 2004
Publisher: Little, Brown
Sales Rank: 2728707
Studio: Little, Brown
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In this landmark work, NEW YORKER columnist James Surowiecki explores a seemingly counter-intuitive idea that has profound implications: Decisions take by a large group, even if the individuals within the group aren't smart, are always better than decisions made by small numbers of 'experts'. This seemingly simply notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organised and how nation-states fare. With great erudition, Surowiecki ranges across the disciplines of psychology, economics, statistics and history to show just how this principle operates in the real world. Along the way Surowiecki asks a number of intriguing questions about a subject few of us actually understand - economics. What are prices? How does money work? Why do we have corporations? Does advertising work? His answers, rendered in a delightfully clear prose, demystify daunting prospects. As Surowiecki writes: 'The hero of this book is, in a curious sense, an idea, a hero whose story ends up shedding dramatic new light on the landscapes of business, politics and society'.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds documents and analyzes an extremely important phenomenon. When people guess at a question to which nearly no one knows the answer but most people can make a sensible guess (e.g., what proportion of the world's airports are in the USA; how many marbles can fit into a box that is a meter on each side) the average of a large group is nearly always more accurate than the guess of any member of that group. Moreover, the more people involved, the more accurate the average ... Read More
Rating:  -
Makes the argument that groups of people, apprropriately diversified and independent, can make better decisions than even the smartest individuals in the group most of the time, when their individual ideas, votes, or guesses are properly aggregated.
If it seems like I've used too many qualifiers in summarizing the argument, so does the author in making the argument. Some of the arguments are intriguing, but not all of them are convincing, and in the second half of the book he spends more ... Read More
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I borrowed this book from the local library. I just finished it yesterday. It is a really quick read. I liked how the author used "real world" examples to illustrate his point. I plan to apply many of these techniques into my own business.
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I read this for a MBA class. Out of the stack of books assigned, so far, this is the only one I liked. It is relevant to today's curious questions of how to get crowds engaged, how crowds behave, and why we even care.
I'm trying to teach people to work collaboratively together at work. They "think" they already are doing this but the author gives me new ideas on how to further their participation in team work. I find that in corporate america, people contribute mostly in their assigned ... Read More
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I love books that take a new and unique idea, thoroughly research and expand the idea, and then present the findings in an entertaining, though-provoking way.
The Wisdom of Crowds is one such book. Other recent titles that have achieved the same type of cult following for presenting unique hypotheses include The Tipping Point, Blink and The 4 Hour Work Week.
You know the old saying, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got, and in the current ... Read More
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