ABSTRACT
Potential Scholars and critics have been quick to respond to James Surowiecki’s work in both a positive and negative light, but the response itself is indicative of the book’s relevance. As decision science and “big data” become increasingly popular for myriad applications, references to Surowiecki’s book will no doubt continue. Several areas are well poised for application of crowd intelligence, such as prediction markets* (markets that trade at a price based on the likelihood of an event occurring), Delphi methods* (forecasting methods based on asking question to a panel of experts), and human swarming* (where groups of online participants answer questions.) However, these applications all circle around similar themes, notably the quest for predicted factual answers that can be verified; questions on opinion, and applications of opinion polls, are less appropriate.
