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The Smart Swarm: How Understanding Flocks, Schools, And Colonies Can Make Us Better At Communicating, Decision Making, And Getting Things Done (2010)

by Peter Miller(Favorite Author)

3.67 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1583333908 (ISBN13: 9781583333907)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Avery

review 1: If you're interested in lots of examples of animal communication, coordination and how colonies function, then this book is pretty good. There are reasonable descriptions of this behaviour and the author gives interesting accounts of how interactions and organisation take place in these groups.I rated it two stars because it was less good at relating this to human decision-making. I suppose one could draw one's own insights from animal studies and use that perspective to try new ways of getting results from large collectives of people without an obvious central control. Perhaps there will be ways to use technology to this end, but the ideas haven't to me yet.
review 2: Interesting book examining how collectively organized insects and animals use their group as ... morea problem solving tool. It appears that there is an inherent, almost mathematically predictable, advantage group living insects and animals have unrelated to, indeed divorced from, individual thought process. This is in large part involved with shared information -- albeit not by any human-like method, rather by such activity as laying pheromone trails, or dance, etc. Certain groups – most notably bees, then reach determination as to what action to take (such as where to place a new hive)based upon certain members’ evaluation of the evidence and a debate like presentation (the more bees joining in a dance and the vigorousness of that groups’ dance) The author then explores the way in which certain human groupings do the same, perhaps the best example being the Vermont town hall meetings. The author then goes on to show the superiority of group decision making, at least in processes involving such ordering as Rodgers Rules of Order among others. He distinguishes, however, situations of group shared information and opinions from mob-like events; such as tramplings that occur sometimes in large crowd movement, when such process is not occurring.Although not addressed, the book’s implication would seem to indicate that social media could play a serious role in national decision making – if facts/opinions are shared between the collective rather than just within groups with preset notions and opinions. As a postscript: I had this vague feeling that perhaps if a collective process is demonstrably superior, and we are all becoming more and more electronically connected, the Borg may yet surface as the superior race of humanoids. less

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