Business Models exploiting Collective Wisdom

The recent successes of systems like Google, Wikipedia and InnoCentive suggest that the time is now ripe for more such systems. Thus, we want to explore these systems and exploit them from a viewpoint of social psychology prior to technological progress. First of all, we examine the difference between 'wisdom of crowds' and 'crowd psychology'. There are two classes, which are for senior management major students. Conditions of two are same, except a class time. Forty five students in one class are tested for this experiment. They form a group with five people and are divided into 9 groups. In a case of a morning class, peer-to-peer evaluations are given to individuals in a class when a group presentation for a final project is given. On the other hand, in a case of afternoon class, peer-to-peer evaluations are given to each group in a class. The result is quite fruitful. The first is that an expert's evaluation for a project agrees with students, who are beginners in this field in the degree of more than 95%. However, in the case of afternoon class, students' group evaluation turns out to agree with an expert's one less than 53%. Morning class experiment result proves the truth of collective intelligence again. It tunrs out independent and confidential opinions are more cost effective and give right answers to questions than group opinions.