The Wisdom of Crowds

Why the Many are Smarter than the Few
JAMES SUROWIECKI

This is a wonderful book on collective intelligence filled with a great deal of good sense and practical wisdom. Surowieki's main argument is that a crowd of people with great diversity in ability and knowledge, can consistently outperform the experts - as long as they are able to think with relative independence and there is a system for aggregating their collective mind.

The three conditions essential for good collective wisdom are diversity, independence and decentralisation - of a particular form.

Surowieki begins with the illustration of a scientist in 1906 who was convinced that 'normal' people were not able to make inteligent decisions. He attended a farmers exhibition and watched a group of people bet on the weight of an ox. He was convinced that the sum of their 'average' minds would provide evidence for the weakness of the 'herd'. He gathered the betting skips together and was surprised to find that the mean average guess was 1,197 pounds. The ox actually weighed 1,198 pounds - pretty close!

This is, of course, a fairly basic example, but the book is rich with theory and stories, ranging from psycological and sociological experiments to real world examples drawn from business, inteligence and nature. I am particulalry taken by the observation that a large group of people with limited knowledge can produce better and more consistent results than a few experts.

This is a good book which I have found very helful in my continuing reflections on collaboration, mutuality and the church...

It brings to mind the silly little exercise we used to do with congregations when we asked them, during a service, to list three things that they would like to see happen in their church within five years. This may seem like a daft exercise but it fulfils Surowieki's criteria. The whole bredth of the congregation were able to contribute, and their responses were fully independent, since there was no discussion and the small pieces of paper were gathered in without being seen. The results could then be grouped in themes to indicate the common mind of the church. Once again, you may say this sounds insignificant, but I would like to point out that the Watling Valley churches who did this in 2000-1 produced the list of six partnership values which still seem incredibly relevant eight years later!

The thing that has really got my mind spinning is that this concept of collective inteligence may be really helpful in developing a theory of collaborative discernment. The issue of discernment (particularly of new ministers) has been raised locally as we move towards a more collaborative appraoch. Who should decide which local people are called to take up particular roles. Clearly the issue of gifts is highly significant, but who is responsible for identifying them? Should people self-select? Do we trust the clergy to do it for us? Does discernment only work if it's done by people on the outside? Do we need a diocesan selection conference for vergers and coffee makers?

In some ministerial models it is common to present people with a list of members and ask them to indicate which individuals are called for particular roles - or ask them to put names on a piece of paper and drop them in box - after prayer, of course. Is this merely an exercise in consultation or is something more significant taking place? Can a congregation, filled with the Spirit, opperate as a collective inteligence, thus producing an authentic piece of group wisdom?

In some places the "nomination" from the congregation is then processed by a central panel who pick people who fit with their own objectives. This would be one way of processing the information - similar to the process used to develop Linux.

A more authentic way of "agragating" the information may be for a co-ordinating panel to approach the most frequently identified individuals and invite them to explore their call further through a process of mutual discernment, further exploration, formal interview or election - depending on the post. Surowieki is correct to say that the more people who are involved in the agragation process the better.

Interesting... I'm going to think some more about some of the strands in this book. It has a lot to say about leadership, decision-making, group processes and collaboration. It's a very useful theoretical tool.