Creating Wise Crowds: How Positive Culture and Fair Process Can Prevent “Madness”
Scott E. Page
Free and open to the public
About the talk:
Evidence demonstrates both the Wisdom of Crowds (Collective Intelligence) and the Madness of Crowds (Group Think) in collective forecasts. Forecasts underpin most decisions; good decisions, therefore, require good forecasts. In this talk, Scott Page discusses the phenomena of wise and mad crowds in the context of forecasts, demonstrates the logic of how diversity can produce accurate collective forecasts (the wisdom of crowds), and the necessity of (1) a positive culture where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, clarifying logic, and facts and (2) a process that facilitates collective knowledge production for both good decisions and acceptance of those decisions. Scott concludes with a discussion of differing perspectives on using technology to enable anonymous participation.
About Page:
Scott E. Page’s research focuses on the function of diversity in complex social systems, the potential for collective intelligence, and the design of institutions for meeting the challenges of a complex world.
A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, Scott was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, and in 2019, he was awarded a Distinguished University Professorship from the University of Michigan, the university’s highest academic honor. He is a member of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute
He is the author of more than one hundred research papers in a variety of fields including: game theory, economics, political theory, formal political science, sociology, psychology, philosophy, physics, public health, geography, computer science, and management. In 2021, he helped to launch and now edits the Journal of Collective Intelligence.
A native of Yankee Springs Michigan, Scott holds a BA in mathematics from The University of Michigan, and MA from The University of Wisconsin, and an MS and PhD in managerial economics and decision sciences from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University. Scott lives in Ann Arbor, MI, with his wife, University of Michigan political science professor Jenna Bednar and their dogs Oda and Hildy. Their two sons, Orrie (20) and Cooper (18) attend college at MIT and the School of the Art Institute.
Host:
Julia Lee Cunningham, Faculty Co-Director, Center for Positive Organizations; Associate Professor of Management and Organizations
Series Sponsors:
The Center for Positive Organizations thanks Sanger Leadership Center, Tauber Institute for Global Operations, Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, and Diane (BA ‘73) and Paul (MBA ‘75) Jones for their support of the 2022-23 Positive Links Speaker Series.
Series Promotional Partners:
Additionally, we thank Ann Arbor SPARK and the Managerial and Organizational Cognition (MOC) Division of the Academy of Management for their Positive Links Speaker Series promotional partnerships.
