Making a moot pointMonday, May 4th, 2009 with 5 Comments »

In his book “The Wisdom of Crowds”, James Surowiecki approaches crowds with the assumption that each member, however diverse, has one thing in common: a desire to “get it right” with respect to finding solutions to whatever challenges they jointly face. But what happens when some members of the crowd want to get it wrong? Can the influence of a few outliers alter the apparent will of the masses?