[FRIAM] Amazon.com: The Wisdom of Crowds: Books: James Surowiecki

[Owen Densmore]

I've been reading this critter:
   http://tinyurl.com/hexhe
.. and am interested in its application to social modeling, and  
possibly business/organizational modeling.

The thesis is that good decisions can be made by crowds if they are:
- Diverse
- Independent
- Decentralized
- Good method for aggregating the results.

I started on the book a while back while discouraged after the  
democrats shot themselves in the foot the last election.  Thinking  
crowds were stupid, I was surprised a bit by the author's thesis.

Anyone read it?  Have opinions?  Got ideas how to apply it to  
community modeling?

     -- Owen

Owen Densmore
http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org