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More words!

May 24, 2007

Feel free to roll around in them like a pig in ... clover:

In Strategy & Business, I have an article (pdf) about the application of "peer production" to business innovation. The title the magazine gave the piece is "The Ignorance of Crowds," but it's really more about the weaknesses, or limitations, of crowds. I argue that peer production works well for manifold, time-consuming tasks that don't require a lot of coordination among workers but that it's not going to help you come up with a great new idea or give a product the kind of polish that often creates a hit in the market.

In the latest edition of the Financial Times Digital Business podcast, I look at Microsoft's prospects, asking the all-important question: What exactly does Microsoft have in common with Barry Manilow?

In another podcast, I talk to Supernova impresario Kevin Werbach about why we shouldn't confuse the Net's effect on business with its effect on culture.

Advertisement: Are you ready for "The Big Switch"? Fast Company calls Nicholas Carr's new book "compulsively readable - for nontechies, too." Salon says it's "magisterial." Order now from Amazon.com.

Comments

Great article.

"[...] best viewed as a means for refining the old rather than inventing the new; that it’s an optimization model more than an invention model."

This is really food for thought for participants in the software market.

Filip

Posted by: Filip Verhaeghe [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 29, 2007 06:35 AM

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Nick's new book: bigswitchcover2thumb.jpg "Future Shock for the web-apps era" -Fast Company

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Greatest hits

The amorality of Web 2.0

The editor and the crowd

Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians

The great unread

The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock's avatar

Sharecropping the long tail

The social graft

Steve Jobs' devices

MySpace's vacancy

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The ignorance of crowds

The recorded life

The end of corporate computing

IT doesn't matter

The parasitic blogger

The sixth force

Hypermediation

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