on Surowiecki's book, Oinas-Kukkonen captures the wisdom of crowds approach with the following eight conjectures: It is possible to describe how people in a group think as a whole. In some cases, groups are remarkably intelligent and are often smarter than the smartest people in them. The three conditions for a group to be intelligent are diversity, independence, and decentralization. The best decisions are a product of disagreement and contest. Too much communication can make the group as a whole less intelligent. Information aggregation functionality is needed. The right information needs to be delivered to the right people in the right place, at the right time, and in the right way. There is no need to chase the expert. Failures of crowd intelligence Surowiecki studies situations (such as rational bubbles) in which the crowd produces very bad judgment, and argues that in these types of situations their cognition or cooperation failed because (in one way or another) the members of the crowd were too conscious of the opinions of others and began to emulate each other and conform rather than think differently. Although he gives experimental details of crowds collectively swayed by a persuasive speaker, he says that the main reason that groups of people intellectually conform is that the system for making decisions has a systematic flaw. Causes and detailed case histories of such failures include: Connection At the 2005 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference Surowiecki presented a session entitled Independent Individuals and Wise Crowds, or Is It Possible to Be Too Connected? He recommends: Keep your ties loose. Keep yourself exposed to as many diverse sources of information as possible. Make groups that range across hierarchies. Tim O'Reilly and others also discuss the success of Google, wikis, blogging, and Web 2.0 in the context of the wisdom of crowds. Applications Surowiecki is a strong advocate of the benefits of decision markets and regrets the failure of DARPA's controversial Policy Analysis Market to get off the ground. He points to the success of public and internal corporate markets as evidence that a collection of people with varying points of view but the same motivation (to make a good guess) can produce an accurate aggregate prediction. According to Surowiecki, the aggregate predictions have been shown to be more reliable than the output of any think tank. He advocates extensions of the existing futures markets even into areas such as terrorist activity