When making important decisions, we all too often defer to the smartest or most reputed experts in the field. However, recent research has confirmed that our collective wisdom is much superior to that of any individual in the group, no matter how ‘smart’ or ‘informed’ that individual is.
In 2004, the American journalist James Surowiecki wrote the seminal work ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’, in which he described how groups of many individuals routinely outperform the decision-making faculty of experts and authorities, whether this involves cognition, coordination or cooperation.
These insights are particularly important within the context of social entrepreneurship. Our project aims to develop a social media infrastructure which serves as a platform for social collaboration. These collaborative tools will bring together a multitude of individuals, each with their own individual skills, knowledge and ideas on how to maximize the social value of the community.
The result will be a platform through which the ‘wisdom of crowds’ can reach its fullest potential and make the biggest social impact.
Ways in which The Social Corporation Benefits from the Wisdom of Crowds
As mentioned above, the nucleus of our project around which our movement is built, our social media infrastructure, is a shining example of bringing forth the wisdom of crowds. We are all about the proliferation of social entrepreneurship, but the ways in which we aim to achieve this goal will be determined wholly by the many and not by the few.
In order to maximize the social value of our labor and capital, we need a way to determine the relative social impact of different projects. In line with Surowiecki’s work, we have decided that the best decisions are made when our users – aka you and everyone like you – determine the relative social benefit, instead of leaving a single person or small group of people in control.
With our upcoming social media infrastructure, we hope to not only identify those projects which have the highest expected social value, but also to collaborate on them and coordinate our activities to complete them. We will do this together as a group of equals, and not as a rigid hierarchy.
We also go one step further and will subject the policy formulation of our movement, our stated goals, our principles, tactics, strategies and directions and everything else that ‘defines’ us as a movement, to crowdsourcing. All our policies will be devised only through maximum participation of all our members, in order to make optimal use of the widely different skills and knowledge of our members. This way, we will achieve the most efficient and most effective structure possible.
Smart Mobs and How to Use Them
A Smart Mob is a group of people with a common aim or goal who use modern technologies such as social media and smartphones to coordinate their activities without the use of central direction.
Smart Mobs are effective at achieving their objectives because they take full advantage of the wisdom of crowds and act in an intelligent manner. The idea is to induce the forming of a spontaneous order, helped by modern technologies, which is much superior to any kind of authoritarian structure.
Just imagine what a large smart mob can do when all of its members have the common objective of making a positive social impact in the world. Or better yet, stop imagining and look closely at our movement: this is exactly what The Social Corporation is. Join us and make a real difference.
Monday, 02 July 2012 14:33
The Wisdom of Crowds: How Thinking and Working Together Benefits Us All
Written by Marquis Davis-
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