Short Discussion on the Dumbness of Crowds

For this week's forum topic in class, we were given the article "The Dumbness of Crowds" to discuss.

After reading the article for the forum post discussion this week, I can’t say that I am entirely on one side or the other. I do support collaboration efforts, especially since I have come to use so many of them, and find them to be successful in their purpose. On the other hand, I also can see the author’s point of view and agree that not all collaboration works work well.

A big part of creating a type of art, whether it be music, drawing, writing, etc., is the backbone of expression. Can more than one person create some kind of work together and have it be successful? Sure! I bet they could, but more often than not, these types of works are normally completed by single people. Artists of any medium use self expression daily to produce these types of things and 100% collaboration will never be reached in my opinion.

Bringing the discussion back to software programs, which we discussed last week: I still believe that these can be done well with collaborative efforts. While I do agree that sometimes part of the exciting new ideas tend to be left out or stretched out, there is still so much more that people can weigh in on through coding for example. While one person’s new idea may take rise, the efforts of multiple people working on that idea will help bring it to life much quicker than if that person were to do it on their own.

I think the phrase “the dumbness of crowds” goes well beyond us discussing Web 2.0 as well. We are usually forced to collaborate in our daily lives, especially when it comes to our jobs. We either work as a team, or don’t and face the consequences. Of course, if you are in certain positions, this won’t be the case, but it will be for the majority. We are asked to be able to work efficiently alone and to be able to be part of a team. Sometimes this goes a lot easier than others. When there is tension or mixed feelings about how things should proceed, there will be those to take a firm stance, and those that sit back and stay quiet, never letting their opinions be heard.

The article was definitely an interesting read and was about two sides I would have not really given much thought to before. I enjoyed that there were so many additional links to other blogs and resources with articles on the same for future reading.

Source:

Sierra, K. (2007). Creating Passionate Users. Retrieved August 24, 2016, from http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/the_dumbness_of.html