Recently I reported some corporate backlash against James Surowiecki's ideas in The Wisdom of Crowds and its message that, if organizations were smart, they could dump a lot of expensive senior executive and consultant/expert baggage and get better decisions by putting critical questions collectively to employees, customers and appropriately 'qualified' elements of the 'general public'.

The objections point out that 'crowds' are not great at doing everything. But that's exactly Surowiecki's point: The very things that crowds are good at are precisely those things that executives, consultants and experts pride themselves on doing.