The myth of the crowd
The whole idea of the wisdom of crowds is always an intriguing one. At eyeforpharma conferences, various speakers have demonstrated how closely a large group can predict the correct answer to various problems. And I must admit, the demonstrations have convinced me of the usefulness of the approach.
So for those of you interested in the power of crowds, I wanted to share a bit of analysis recently put forth by Dan Woods at Forbes.com ( The Myth of Crowdsourcing," September 29, 2009). Woods looks at using crowds to solve complex problems such as the recent $1 million Netflix prize for creating a better algorithm for recommending films.
But Woods says the idea that there is a crowd that solves problems better than individuals is a myth.
There is no crowd in crowdsourcing, he writes. There are only virtuousos, usually uniquely talented, highly trained people who have worked for decades in a field. Frequently these innovators have been funded through failure after failure. From their fervent brains spring new ideas. The crowd has nothing to do with it. The crowd solves nothing, creates nothing.
Woods says the problem is simply broadcast to a large number of people with varying forms of expertise and then individuals apply their talent to creating a solution.
I think Woods is right. Groups of individuals dont generally combine talents to solve these problems. The problems are posed to a group, but individuals solve them. Few articles on Wikipedia are truly written by a crowd, for example. Most are contributed by a single individual with a passion for a particular topic.
So what does this say about the wisdom of crowds?
Ill grant you that when you ask enough people, the average answer approaches the correct one. But is it always practical within a company (or elsewhere) to poll enough people to get the right answer or prediction? In most cases, probably not. For most practical problems considered by companies, theres not a big enough crowd available to rely on to help deduce the right forecast.
And so, while the wisdom of crowds is a valid concept, how practical day-to-day is gathering a crowd? The wisdom of a select group of experts in a given area is still what we rely on most to make most forecasts. Its simply a matter of practicality.
But as always, wed love to hear your thoughts.