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The Wisdom of Crowds (平装)
by James Surowiecki
| Category:
Collaboration, Business thinking, Globalization, Management |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 138.00
[ Shop incentives ]
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Combined solid ideas and research, the author of this great business book advocates diversity, independent thought, and collective wisdom to achieve maximum success. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 16 items |
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Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
The Wisdom of Crowds is dazzling. It is one of those books that will turn your world upside down. It's an adventure story, a manifesto, and the most brilliant book on business, society, and everyday life that I've read in years. |
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Po Bronson (author of What Should I Do With My Life?) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
This book should be in every thinking businessperson?s library. Without exception. At a time when corporate leaders have shown they?re not always deserving of our trust, James Surowiecki has brilliantly revealed that we can trust each other. That we count. That our collective effort is far more important than the lofty predictions of those CEO-kings we have worshipped for too long. |
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Joe Nocera (editorial director of Fortune magazine and author of A Piece of the Action) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
Jim Surowiecki has done the near impossible. He's taken what in other hands would be a dense and difficult subject and given us a book that is engaging, surprising, and utterly persuasive. The Wisdom of Crowds will change the way you think about markets, economics, and a large swatch of everyday life. |
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Emeritus (Stanford University) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
It has become increasingly recognized that the average opinions of groups is frequently more accurate than most individuals in the group. As a special case, economists have spoken of the role of markets in assembling dispersed information. The author has written a most interesting survey of the many studies in this area and discussed the limits as well as the achievements of self-organization. (Kenneth Arrow, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and Professor of Economics |
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Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
Most crowds of readers would agree that Jim Surowiecki is one of the most interesting journalists working today. Now he has written a book that will exceed even their expectations. Anyone open to re-thinking their most basic assumptions – people who enjoyed The Tipping Point, say – will love this book. |
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Financial Times (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
As readers of Surowiecki's writings in The New Yorker will know, he has a rare gift for combining rigorous thought with entertaining example. [The Wisdom of Crowds] is packed with amusing ideas that leave the reader feeling better-educated. |
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The Boston Globe (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
As entertaining and thought-provoking as The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell… The Wisdom of Crowds ranges far and wide. |
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Rolf Dobelli (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
This well-written bestseller explores the apparent anomaly that crowds of nonexperts seem to be collectively smarter than individual experts or even small groups of experts. This basic insight is at the heart of contemporary financial investment theory, with its emphasis on the difficulty of outguessing the market. Beginning with British scientist Francis Galton's remarkable discovery in 1906 that a crowd of nonexperts proved surprisingly competent at guessing the weight of an ox, financial columnist and author James Surowiecki skillfully recounts experiments, discoveries and anecdotes that demonstrate productive group thinking. The concept does not come as news to anyone reasonably well read in modern financial literature, but we recommend this comprehensive, fresh presentation. |
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Robert Brown (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
The author, James Surowiecki, lays out and explores a variety of general and specific cases of groups of people acting either wisely or stupidly. The examples are all easy to relate to, and I found them to raise meaningful questions in my mind which were answered in due course in the text.
When I think of crowds, I think of unthinking masses moving together, led by tradition, habit, or an individual. How can that be wise? A more accurate title would be "How some groups of people can make better decisions than experts, while others act like collective idiots, and what characteristics distinguish the two types of groups", although that's hardly likely to sell as many copies. :-)
For me this really shed some light on my past experiences of participating in successful and unsuccessful teams at work. I'd sometimes wondered why I've been on a few teams that appeared to "click" (smart people who want to work together to achieve a common goal), but our results weren't great, whereas other teams have been successful. What was it that made a good team? I had some of the pieces, felt I still had some real gaps in my knowledge. This book certainly helped.
To paraphrase the basic idea that I took away from the book, teams of people can achieve superior results if:
1 Each individual on the team is well informed;
2 The work of one individual does not influence the work of another;
3 There is an objective method to aggregate individual conclusions into a group conclusion.
As simple as they sound, there are many ways to fail, and the book does a great job of exploring a variety of phenomena that cause failure. |
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Randall Helzerman (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
Are two heads really better than one? What about three heads, or a whole crowd of heads? Under what conditions can a crowd outthink an individual, and vice versa?
This book demonstrates that human knowledge bears a surprising resemblance to ant knowledge: to a surprising degree, it isn't concentrated in any individual, rather, it is distributed throughout the population. If we can find effective ways of aggregating this knowledge (such as majority voting, or averaging a large number of guesses) we have a new powerful tool in our epistemic toolbox.
But what sets this book apart from typical books of the type is that the author is quite clear under which conditions the crowd is wiser than the individual. For the crowd to be wiser, it is very important that the opinions of each individual in the crowd were formed independently of each other. A crowd can be as stupid as an individual if they suffer from "groupthink" where they are somehow compelled, through social pressure or force, or propaganda, to adopt a minority viewpoint.
As such, this book can be read as a defence of free speech, freedom of thought, and individual rights. Yes, crowds _can_ be wiser than individuals, but only certain kinds of crowds. If we slavishly act like a herd of cows, moo-ing in unison, we're unlikely to be smarter than any individual cow. But if each individual represents an independent viewpoint, and if we can nevertheless come to a reasoned concensus, we have a fighting chance. This book demonstrates the immense power of the ability to reach the _right_kind_ of concensus. |
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