Are We Just Following the Guy with the Torch?

Last week, while at the Communications Network annual conference, I had the pleasure of listening to 5 great keynote speakers. They gave me lots of food for thought, and I'm passing it along in this and my next 2 blog posts.

Jim Surowiecki, columnist for The New Yorker, kicked off the conference with a discussion of the ideas in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds. Basically, under the right conditions, a group as a whole can be smarter than the smartest person in the group. What are those right conditions? According to Surowiecki, you need three things:

• A meaningful way to aggregate the data and opinions. You have to take what you hear and actually do something with it, so you have to combine it in a way that makes it easier for you to find the nuggets and act on them.
• Cognitive diversity. You need people who have different ways of processing information and framing a problem, as well as people with different ideas, tools, life experiences, and perspectives. This expands the range of information within the group. Surowiecki pointed out that 90% of the time, a random group will outperform the experts, even though their IQ is lower. They know less as individuals but group has wider range of outlooks and perspectives. It helps avoid everyone making the same mistake. Conversations in homogenous groups tend to become an echo chamber.
• People who think for themselves. You need independence of thought, and you need people who will say what they think. You also need a safe environment in which to do so--you have to let people say whatever is on their minds and take it seriously, without criticizing or dismissing it out of hand.

Lucy Bernholz, a blogger on philanthropy and author of Disrupting Philanthropy, echoed the sentiment of cognitive diversity when she said in a later session, "When you talk to someone you know you'll agree with, you lose the wisdom of crowds and invoke the rule of mobs."

So are we just following the guy with torch? Do we really try to tap into the wisdom of crowds? If not, how can we tap into that wisdom?

Social media is one seemingly easy answer--it definitely expands who you can reach. However, most people use it to talk to the usual suspects. As Bernholz challenged us, "Are we taking yesterday's message and using technology to accelerate it to people already in our rolodex?"

I think the answer lies even before choosing a tool or method for tapping into the wisdom of the crowd. We first have to expand who we are listening to. And we have to go to them, we can't wait for them to come to us. As Jacob Harold, a conference attendee from the Hewlett Foundation said, "Don't think outside the box, actually get into another box."

Where are those other boxes the Health Foundation should get into? What crowds in Greater Cincinnati should we reach out to and listen to? Whose wisdom are we missing?