We Are Smarter Than Me
Check out the site on the collaborative book being written online by people with a connection to Wharton Business School, MIT Sloan School of Management, Pearson and Shared Insights:
The central premise of We Are Smarter Than Me is that large groups of people (“We”) can, and should, take responsibility for traditional business functions that are currently performed by companies, industries and experts (“Me”)…
While they extol the power of communities, [recent books] were each written by only one person. We’re putting this paradox to the test by inviting hundreds of thousands of authors to contribute to this “network book” using today’s technologies.
Seems the book will be about how the community will “impact” business.
I have a few life rules, mostly silly — “Beware people who drive with hats on.” — that sort of thing. One of them, a trifle less silly, is “Never read a book avowedly written by more than one person,” which would blow this one very far off my to-be-read list. Still, there’s something intriguing about the collaboration of ants idea. Wonder if it would work in law.
Oh, and wish they’d called it “We are smarter than I,” which is not only correct usage but also emphasizes the singularity of… me.
Then Simon you can abandon all anthologies, encyclopedias and Maddaugh and McCamus, and you`d lose out
An interesting and important essay On Digital Maoism in John Brockman’s web site in the space between science and culture that posits that creativity doesn`t come from crowds or collaboration. Worth considering.
The anthology and encyclopedia examples kind of make my point, Simon. They’re a collection of “books” each written by one person. Too bad about Maddaugh and McCamus, though: you’re right.