Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Bad Titles and the Need for Theory to Inform Practice

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
I agree that 'The Wisdom of Crowds' is a bad title. As Dave Snowden suggests, "crowds are herds; we see that with the blogosphere, response to opinion polls and many other examples." And that's why understanding Surowiecki's three conditions - independance of opinion, relevant diversity and decentralization - is important. The world doesn't neatly divide into the cynefin categories, though. You can't draw a nice neat line between complex and chaotic - there are degrees of independence between agents. That's why I describe semantic conditions (diversity, autonomy, openness, connectedness) rather than categories: I am describing parameters, not classifications. And that, too, is the problem with theory informing practice.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 04, 2024 3:15 p.m.

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