Ashesh Badani's Weblog..: Past, present and future

Its been a while since my last blog entry - Rich said the second entry was the hardest but in my case its been the third...

I was traveling recently so brought along a book I had read halfway through to pick up where I had left off. The book - Wisdom of the Crowds - is a fascinating read but I found it hard to start reading at the page earmarked and had to go back to get context. I am realizing it is not the best idea to have long gaps when you are trying to follow a narrative.

The ideas that fascinate me in the book are around the notion that large groups are more effective/accurate decision makers or predictors than smaller teams. The Iowa Electronic Markets is a great example of a group of inviduals being able to collectively better predict the outcome of elections than experienced pollsters. The book's author describes how small groups in NASA made poor decisions that resulted in awful outcomes. But we've also all been in situations where decisions by large committees take too long and ultimately go in directions that nobody really wants and takes into account so many perspectives that nobody is completely satisfied.

In the same vein is a book about too many choices in our world today. While I havent read it, I can certainly see the point - the other day I was in a pharmacy and was blown away by the number of choices I have to pick something up for a cold or flu - several brands, flavors, day/night relief, dosage strength. Not sure it was productive for me to spend about 10 mts trying to figure out what exactly matched my need.

So are we much smarter and more effective when large groups of people are involved? Or do we get confused and paralyzed into inaction because we are attempting to digest too many voices and opinions?