Follow the leader vs. wisdom of the crowds

"Wisdom of the crowds" is a phrase that I'm hearing more and more lately, and I knew it was more than the soundbite description of "a large group makes better decisions than any single member of that group."  According to Wikipedia[1], this basic definition is true, but it also comes with four necessary conditions:

1. Diversity of opinion: each person should have their own information, even if that information is their opinion of shared facts.
2. Independence: group members' opinions are their own, and aren't affected by others in the group.
3. Decentralization: when it makes sense, group members can rely on local knowledge or their own skills and specialization.
4. Aggregation: there exists a way to take individual opinions to form a collective decision.

This makes intuitive sense, as we feel that "wisdom of the crowds" is somehow different from mere "mob mentality."  

The one that often gets muddled and forgotten, though, is "Inde

pendence."  We understand why this is important, yet often is the hardest to implement.

Take Digg for example.  This seems like the purest form of "wisdom of the crowds."  Someone submits a link, and the crowd decides via a thumbs-up-or-not decision whether this link is worthy of promoting.  But already, this is colored simply by the submission itself.  Without a true diversity of links submitted, you get a biased list of great links and content on the Web.  

But worse than this is the fact that you can always see how many other people have decided that they like this link.  This no doubt affects a Digger's propensity to first of all rate the link, then whether or not it gets promoted.  For the user who is looking to follow the crowd, they are likelier to read and rate the link.  For the users 

with independent streaks, they may see a link that isn't getting as many Digg's as they think it should, and are likelier to promote it.

Another example of this is Google Moderator, the tool that allows people to submit questions or items through a web-based interface which then are voted on by users.  Here, the submission has an even stronger effect on the bias of the output.  

The earlier one submits their question or item, the less competition it has vs. later submissions, and is simply available for a longer period of time to garner more votes.  

While it seems like only the best questions or items float to the top, in fact, this is very biased towards the early submissions.

There is an interesting research study that came out in the February 3, 2005 issue of "Nature" about crowd behavior among animals.  According to the study, large groups of animals can be affected by only a few members of that group with knowledge about the location of food, safe shelter, etc.  In fact, the study goes on, the larger the group, the smaller the proportion of informed individuals are needed to make very accurate decisions.  Those looking to turn to the "wisdom of the crowds" for answers should well understand this, and heed these pitfalls.  A very small subset of a larger group can have a huge impact on the decision that group makes, while looking from the outside as an unbiased "wise crowd."  The crowd we though was wise could simply be a dumb mob.

Perhaps there's a crowd somewhere that will help us all design better products designed to take advantage of crowd wisdom...

[1] By the way, I wanted to see what kind of an authority Wikipedia has become, so out of curiosity, I compared how many search results there were for ["according to Wikipedia"] vs. ["according to Encyclopedia Britannica"].  Just for good measure, I also compared it to ["according to God"].  The results:

• ["according to Wikipedia"] = 2,210,000 results
  
• ["according to Encyclopedia Britannica"] = 3,960 results
  
• ["according to God"] = 2,530,000 results
  

Not only does Wikipedia dwarf EB in references by 560X, Wikipedia's authority is closing in very fast on God's.  Wow.  Here's hoping THAT crowd is wise.

The difference between a successful entrepreneur and one that sits on the sidelines

Humans love reversibility. 

If we can do something and know that we can roll the tape back it if we mess it up, we are much more likely to do it.  One of the killer features of Microsoft Word (and pretty much now pervasive in all the OS and other OSes) is the Undo feature.  Arcade games are fun because you have more than one "life" to get further in the game.  How many of us would be more honest and free to speak if we knew that we could take back something we said that we didn't like after we said it?

So I think the difference between a successful entrepreneur and one who watch from the sidelines is not likely a lack of skill, talent, availability of start-up capital, or any of the usual reasons you would imagine.  No, I think the difference is that the successful entrepreneurs have a broader sense of what is reversible when it comes to building a business.  For many of these successful entrepreneurs, trying a business and failing at it is not truly the end of the world, but rather something that can be written off, and can then be a launching point for the next business.  The sideliner, in the meantime, contemplates that the risk for starting and failing is too great, it isn't reversible, and isn't worth the risk in starting.

The grain of truth hidden here beyond starting businesses is probably this:  most anything in life that we feel is a risk for which failure is not reversible is likely in our imagination.  So what is stopping you from taking that risk today?  I'm sure there's an Undo Button of Life somewhere to be found...

Better than skipping commercials

Networks and advertisers have it all wrong.  Rather than the TiVo technology being the bane of their very existence, they should work with TiVo to take advantage of what they can offer.

Here's one idea:  allow users to rate TV commercials with their Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down button on the TiVo remote.  

Some details on how this might work: as a TV viewer, I start watching a commercial.  If I like it, I keep watching it, perhaps even giving it a Thumbs Up.  If I don't like it, I give it a Thumbs Down.  

When I give a commercial a Thumbs Up, that information gets back to TiVo, to the network, and to the advertiser.  They can aggregate this data to see which commercials are good, which are being watched, and hopefully are delivering their message.  They can even take my personal decision to deliver better ads to me if and when the time comes for dynamic delivery of ads through the TiVo.

When I give a commercial a Thumbs Down, the TiVo then skips to the next commercial, and gives me the option to rate the next commercial.  Again, this data is sent back to those who made and showed the commercial, and they are given a better picture of commercials that annoyed their target audience.  TV viewers like myself are going to skip over the commercials anyway -- why not give them a more efficient tool, but at the same time, provide some very valuable data to better deliver a commercial message to TV viewers.  You also get the benefit of a more engaged TV commercial viewer, and a potential customer who isn't forced to sit through or fast-forward through an annoying ad.  To prevent a viewer from simply hitting Thumbs Down to all commercials,  you can force a viewer to see at least the first few seconds of the commercial before giving it a rating.  That way, the time it takes to pass over the commercials via fast-forwarding is about the same as for rating commercials.

Viewers win: they get to skip commercials they don't like, and get a sense of ownership over what commercials they do and don't see.

TiVo wins: they delight their users with new features that benefit them.

Advertisers win: they show better and more effective ads to their market.

Networks win: TV is now a more accountable form of advertising with a better predictive ROI.

How often do you get a win-win-win-win situation?