Depressing News
Last night after gym, I was watching Bloomberg and it was depressing – economy was down yet again, GDP fell, exports fell and after the third sentence said by the newscaster, my brain shut down. In fact, it was just bad news all the way. It got me thinking – How can we (the people of the world) save the world? Can the wisdom of crowds pitch in to do something? Can we consolidate the best ideas in one place?
I am sure the answer to all of the above is YES. But how can we deliver such a capability? Anyone interested in exploring more on this idea?
sid said,
some of the forums can be –
http://www.weforum.org/en/index.htm
http://www.avanoo.com/
and then there are these social networking initaitives / games claiming to make world a better place. Following are from this year ZDnet crunchies awards
http://akoha.com/
http://www.kiva.org/
you know any other initiatives?
Sean Lew said,
I did a search earlier today and couldn’t find much (but I must say I haven’t looked at it in great detail).
I love the weforum – clearly with Davos which just finished, its the leading forum of such kinds.
So far, I still can’t find a site that allows people to discuss issues (as they surface) and some of the suggestions to fix it.
Isaac Garcia said,
The wisdom of crowds (financial and political crowds) is what got us into this mess.
The future and the solution lies in INDIVIDUALS. Those individuals are entrepreneurs and small business owners across the country who take risks, jump out on a limb and create ideas, industry, wealth and yes, jobs.
I just got back from the Wharton Entrepreneur Conference and they had an expo of 25 entrepreneurs (mostly Grad Students) who were full of ideas, optimism, enthusiasm and hope.
And all I could think about is that they don’t care what their neighbor, friends, school, girlfriend, newscaster or government thinks about anything.
They just want to get their idea out there….and working.
THESE are the people who will solve the crisis. THESE are the people who have the will, the ideas and the work ethic to get something done.
Not the losers waiting on the government to “bail them out.” And those losers include the financial idiots at the top.
sid said,
WEF is good they started the buzz last year (http://siddharths.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/wef-20/)
however what happened after that … dunno!!
Interesting point raised by Issac, however I believe its not the “wisdom” of crowd that created chaos ..it can be crowd that created chaos …and right it is that people who bring about change act and not discuss.
While there are whole lot conversations and discussions happening on world wide web … challenge is to see their impact at larger population in real world. … “wisdom” is to share the success stories of real world with like minded people around the world.
Solution might not be with the crowd … however ideas of many such individuals is what is “wisdom” of crowd.
Linda said,
Interesting post today from the TED conference, speaker Barry Schwartz says PRACTICAL WISDOM of individuals will get us back on track.
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
TED is a great place to explore new thinking.
Sean Lew said,
@Issac, Sid, personally, I do not think we can blame any single person, party nor group. Its a consolidated effort that we failed as an economy – bankers, govt, leaders have all contributed in some way. There are alot of things that we need to do to get back on track, stimulate the economy, improve confidence and so on. The most important thing now is not to point finger at anyone. We can leave that till when we are stable and learn from our errors. The key is to fix up the crap that has happened. How can we get there? – I am not sure.
Do you think if people (crowds) came together and discuss, vote for the best solution and submit to the govt would provide a good input to the crisis?
@Linda, yeah I got that link in my inbox yesterday and watched it last nite. Thanks! Its really good and inspirational. I feel to some degree its quite idealistic. But hey, we do need it now!
sid said,
Sean you are right when you say its not the point fingers but to act .. in this discussion of ours i recall one such initiatve started by my friends in India, its calle Ifix – http://pothole.pbwiki.com/ unfortunately it didn go too far …
Sean Lew said,
Wow! Great link. Yeah, I have a similar concept in mind. Would be interesting to explore.
sid said,
Sean Lew said,
I guess the key idea would be have a platform for people to ask, share and contribute to solve the world’s trickiest problems. I am not saying that this platform would actually solve the problems but as the idea develops, it can be an input to policy makers, leaders and CEOs.
sid said,
Check the innovation brain jam results on this post http://siddharths.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/proto04-day2-post-lunch/
something similar and interesting idea … yes these platforms are mostly to conceptualize … problem solving and implementation will happen in real world by real people …
Sean Lew said,
Yeah this is almost exactly what I was thinking of. Would need to explore more in this space.
An example of wisdom of crowds failing? said,
[...] now is somewhat an act of the wisdom of crowds. Issac Garcia pointed it our correctly over here. If this is the case, how can we prevent from such crap happening again? Rules and incentives as [...]
screamerct said,
What’s up? I’ve hung around watching and reading for ages here.
Umm so like does anyone know how to unblock myspace at school?
EWRoss said,
What’s up?
Add A Comment