The Crowd Is Wise (When It’s Focused) - NYTimes article

Quite interesting article by Steve Lohr @NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/technology/internet/19unboxed.html?_r=2&th&emc=th

A couple of interesting points to me are:

• "innovation is often portrayed as a numbers game.The more heads, the better" but also "open-innovation models succeed only when carefully designed for a particular task and when the incentives are tailored to attract the most effective collaborators"

I would add that some sort of non-competitive form of collaboration amongts contendants should produce the best results. In other words, social interactions cannot be cancelled out by competition when searching for optimal solutions.

• "Open-innovation models are adopted to overcome the constraints of corporate hierarchies" but also "To succeed, Mr. Chesbrough said, a company must have a culture open to outside ideas and a system for vetting and acting on them"

Hence crowdsourcing isn't just about getting ideas and suggestions from as many people as are willing to provide them, but also about companies culturally enabled to act upon new ideas and suggestions, flexible and ready for (sometimes radical) changes.