The power of us

The Obvious? quotes a fascinating

Business Week article:

“The nearly 1 billion people online worldwide — along with their shared knowledge, social contacts, online reputations, computing power, and more — are rapidly becoming a collective force of unprecedented power.”

The article is well worth a read, and has another great quote-

“New Yorker writer James Surowiecki, in his illuminating 2004 book of the same name, calls “the wisdom of crowds.” Crowds can go mad, of course, but by and large, it turns out, they’re smarter at solving many problems than even the brightest individuals……… Says Alpheus Bingham, vice-president for Eli Lilly’s e.Lilly research unit: “If I can tap into a million minds simultaneously, I may run into one that’s uniquely prepared.”