Collective Intelligience the New R&D Team?

One of the strongest elements of this next evolution of how people interact with the web is the enabling and power of “collective intelligence”. It is the recognition that know one person or team of ten is smarter than thousands and millions of people. That is why Wikipedia is such an amazing resource. It isn’t just the refinement of topics, it is the number of them. The fact that if I want to know about anything, I can get a strong grasp of it from the refined first paragraph in Wikipedia.

This can apply to new ideas, products, technology and innovation itself. But this is extremely hard for the ego’s of research and development firms and design firms. There innovation has been what sets the standard for millions. It has been their brilliance and opinions that have matter, and there is a pride that goes along with telling people what they really need and/or want.

Seth Godin speaks to this in his book All Marketers are Liars, that the arrogance of companies who assume they have control over how people think are in for a shock in the near future. These are the same companies that demand respect, instead of realizing they are constantly earning it - especially if they are big/successful/#1.

This was all keyed from great article at The Future of Communities blog titled, “Communities Driving Manufacturers Out of the Design Space“

Here is an excerpt:

“In physical products ranging from snowboards to electronic microscopes, users have been shown to be the dominant source of functionally novel innovations.”