When The Crowds Are Not So Wise

James Surowiecki, the author of "The Wisdom of Crowds" came up with some interesting points in his article How the bandwagon wrecked the wisdom of market crowds in Tuesday Guardian when talking about the credit crunch and why the wisdom of crowds didn't kick in.

Namely

• The link between pay and non long term performance was not existent - people were paid on the instant short return results
  
• The long term consequences of failure did not register in people minds
  
• People outsourced responsibility to others such as ratings agencies rather than check into it themselves
  

The fact that Bernie Madoff 'ran' a $50,000,000,000 fund that barely traded any equities over a 20 year period would suggest that there is some truth in this.

Learning from Bees and Ants

Looks like instead of learning from the birds and the bees we should have learning from bees and ants instead.

According to the BBC website

Bees and ants are true team players unlike other creatures who seek safety in numbers for selfish reasons, according to researchers.

Scientists from Edinburgh and Oxford Universities used mathematical models to study "swarm behaviour".

They found that bison or fish want to get to the centre of large groups to keep themselves safe from predators.

Ants and bees worked together as a single unit, and were prepared to die for the greater good of the colony.

You can read the full article at

Bees and ants 'operate in teams'

The Journey of a Carrot: Part 2

Last year, I blogged about how far the humble carrot travelled between the field it was grown in to your local supermarket. Now using Google Maps we can illustrate this.


View Larger Map

How far away is your emergency?

Seth Godin whom I have posted about before has a knack of writing short pithy posts. His latest called How far away is your emergency asks why we always wait for a disaster to happen before actually thinking about how we could prevent it

While you're reading it, try his post called Direct from Consumer Marketing about the stupidity of ignoring those customers who complain

A Whole New Way to Build A House

How authors choose which cars their characters drive

Post from William Gibson about why his characters use Apple Macs and drive VW's. Its written in response to those people who said he was taking product placement money.

William Gibsons novels are great as he has a knack of describing the alternative worlds his character exist in and as he says "I have to convince myself, before I can hope to convince you", so writes about the products he uses.

Flower - The First Game about Global Warming

Wired.com writes about a new game called Flower where you control a flower petal and guide it across a ravaged landscape. As you touch other flowers, they gently come to life, as does the rest of the landscape.

Certainly makes a change from all the other games on the market at the moment and looks like an interesting way of getting people to think about it.

Read the Wired Article - Flower Power Blooms in First Climate-Change Game