Dumb groups and individuals

I'm not the only one being annoyed when memes like “Wisdom of Crowds” and “Long Tail” are being misused. Kathy explains why people should not just shout “Wisdom of Crowds!” when a new online service enables (groups of) people to 'do something'.

“Of course most of what I’ve been dissing is the popular, rampant misinterpretation of Wisdom of Crowds, not what Surowiecki actually meant. Read the book and you’ll see just how significant and powerful the aggregation of individual knowledge really is, and how in the right circumstances with the right constraints, the wisdom found in that group CAN be smarter than the smartest individual in the group. But he never says the group itself becomes smarter when they work together to produce a result as a group.”