“The Wisdom of Crowds” is a concept developed by James Surowiecki while he was a business columnist for The New Yorker.  Not to be tainted with bad connotations like “group think”, “blind faith” or “bunker mentality”, the wisdom of crowds actually refers to the process of a diverse collection of independently-thinking individuals directing a decision or predicting an outcome on the fly.  Think of polling in real-time situations like “ask the audience” and you’re on the right track.Now, here’s the interesting part.  the US Navy is conducting an experiment next week that will put “the wisdom of crowds” to the test – virtually and for real all at the same time.  WTF? you say?  Well, er no, its “MMOWGLI” actually (“Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet“).   Only the US Navy could come up with an acronym like that….

 

But if its still as clear as muddy waters for you, then the best thing is to pop over to Wired’s Danger Room blog and check out the full story.  I know one thing, I’ll be signing up.