day 470: CrowdSourcing

Every since the book, "Wisdom of the Crowds" was written, there has been a steady push to try and "crowd source" everything. Technology allows for us to put a problem, a product, a service, an idea, or a concept, in front of large samples of people who have a common interest and then see what they come up with, as a crowd. Sounds a little like democracy that actually works. There are many good things that come from the wisdom of crowds, but the crowd does not make the decision on a product or a service, it still comes down to people who have a point of view and take a stand. The crowds can provide a direction, but a person must make the decision. I see it all the time in the workplace where consensus falls short and someone has to step forward, but for one reason or another, no one wants to do so. It takes a person with conviction and belief to take a stand. It takes even more than that to run counter to the crowd and refute the "wisdom". When we were growing up, I am sure each of us heard from our parents, "well, would you jump off a bridge just because everyone else was doing it?" The sad part is that too many people do proverbially follow others off the bridge, just because it is harder to take the stand against the crowd. I am reminded of this when I read the account of what the crowd did once after Jesus had cast out demons in a place called Gadarenes. After he had performed His miracle, we read in Matthew 8:24; "The entire town came out to meet Jesus, but they begged him to go away and leave them alone." Think about this. The "entire" town means everyone. Was there not at least one person who wanted to run counter to the crowd and spend more time and hear what Jesus had to say? I suspect there was and there was probably more than one, but instead of fighting the crowd, they succumbed and fell into the lack of wisdom of this crowd. Today, are you in or out of the crowd on some issue, problem, challenge? Are you going to stand firm with your own point of view or run the risk of missing out on something extraordinary because the crowd has a different perspective? Each of us have our own crowd to deal with and it is up to us to go with them or go against them; to be "crowded" or not.

Reference: Matthew 8:34 (New Living Testament)