Denis Hancock at Wikinomics makes an important point almost as an aside and as an introduction to a post about something else:
For most of the last year there’s been one major point in relation to wikinomics that I’ve been trying to make more than any other – that while it’s often seen as synonymous with the “wisdom of crowds“, more often than not wikinomics-enabled strategies focus on finding (and leveraging) “uniquely qualified minds“. This is a subtle but important difference that is most obvious in the first story presented in the book – GoldCorp. Rather than being a tale of how a crowd of people came together to “mass collaborate” and create value, it was an excellent example of using transparency and the web to find those few uniquely gifted individuals that know how to find gold.
For the uninitiated, Wikinomics is… hmmm… how to describe it? It’s a book and web site about mass collaboration. It’s more than that, of course–as most mass collaboration is–but that’s a start.
Hancock’s point is important because it makes a clear distinction between collaborative activities, which have an aim, and crowds, which are about individuals’ aggregated behaviors that rarely lead to an intentional outcome. Sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, economists, law enforcement officials, and many others will have quibbles with that comparison, but I think it get close enough to this point: collaborative efforts have goals; crowds don’t.
This goal-oriented behavior filters out the randomness of crowds. People in organizations and mass collaborations work together toward goals; people in crowds are individually focused. Being good at something should increase an individual’s value in a way that less focused crowds would not.
Yet another distinction is that people in organizations and mass collaborations chose to be together, which also has the benefit of selection. That’s where I see “uniquely qualified minds” being identified.
I’m including organizations in the definition of “collaborative efforts”, but there are further distinctions to be made between formal organizations and mass collaboration in the Wikinomics sense. The point for the moment is to note that intention matters.
The wisdom of crowds is not the same thing as mass collaboration, mass collaboration is not the same as organization, and none of them replaces either of the others. There may be instances in which one is better equipped to handle a particular activity, but crowds aren’t going to replace companies, government agencies, and other organization. What they can be is complementary.
This distinction needs some clarity as we get into fun but misleading terms like “crowdsourcing”. Knowing the difference helps make choices about them better informed. A lot of stuff is happening with people doing things together.
What I’m trying to do is make obvious that there are names and distinctions. While James Surowiecki wrote an interesting book, the subtitle, “Why the many are smarter than the few”, really clouds the matter. Crowds aren’t always smarter than organizations and mass collaboration–just in specific circumstances. Don’t believe the hype.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get back to the news.
5 responses so far ↓
Ben C // 10March2009 at 5:38 pm |
Nice post…
Reading Surowiecki or Sawyer’s Group Genius I think it become clear the differences between the randomness and organized.
Surowiecki’s thesis, or at least my reading of it, is that you can take a random group of 100 or so people and they will more times than not give you a better solution than an individual. Of course his argument comes with caveats. Sawyer’s argument is that even in organized settings, we work better collaboratively than we will going solo. Again there are always exceptions… but what he makes clear is that the argument is that you don’t have to have to have the smartest people in your organization to be the smartest organization… what you really need is a cohesive and competent group comprised of smart (not necessarily the smartest) people. This, of course, goes against the argument we are now hearing coming from Wall Street and their compensation packages…they have to retain their talent, that is why they get the $100 mill bonus. I realize in some instances there are people on wall street that could take $1 bill in clients with them if they walk…maybe it is justified to pay them a bonus (maybe). But some of the smartest, greatest, etc people out there are totally socially retarded, and injecting them into any organization to work solo or in a group does nothing but kill cohesiveness and productivity.
All that being said, the terms of crowdsourcing, mass collaboration, collaboration, wisdom of crowds, crowds, etc, are all very confusing and often used in the wrong situations. There are great uses for all of these collaborative schemes, but choosing when to use one will become the great leadership decision of the future (if it isn’t already).
CV Harquail // 14March2009 at 6:27 pm |
Joseph– this post offers some useful clarification, esp around understanding the differences in process and quality of interaction.
Did you know that this post is up for votes at DigForLeadership.com — I\’ll go vote for you
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