Eric: That's what amazed me too, how little progress we have made in the last 40 years. Doug Engelbart told me that the arrival of the micro-computer/PC was a disaster for his work, he couldn't get any funding. It took us decades to recreate on the microcomputer platform the technologies we already had on mainframe/minicomputer platforms. Doug Engelbart's time-sharing personal workstations looked very similar to modern PCs. In a way, we are returning to that model. The Internet is rapidly bec

Thanks David. The chip foundry model has created a tremendous amount of wealth and a wealth of innovation. The car industry is different but there are many lessons it could learn from the chip foundry model, and in a similar way, unleash a wealth of innovation.

Saying we need to advance technology to deal with new threats that are a result of our advanced technology doesn't really persuade me, but it's pretty cool to see how advanced Doug's ideas were back then and how little progress we've made since. I'm keeping an eye out for the surface technology that I've only seen so far in the movies where you slide a virtual document around on the table by physical touch. With these new electronic surfaces I see a comeback for table top board games.

Tom your thoughts are an inspired discussion on the future of car making. The foundry model has served the IC industry well. My only concern is your idea is very common sense and you are hoping for a rational approach to the challenge.

Optimism is important.

Just playing devils advocate. I was searching to find out if anyone was having problems with their debit cards wearing out after two months(on my 4th for the year)and found this site. I couldn't help but throw in some perspective.

Wells Fargo probably has upwards of 80 million customers with 300 million accounts. On any give day no less than 20 people will look at your account and make some sort of decision on it. The system requires that all 20 people know all of the Bank's po

Ralph: Fair point. I just don't feel comfortable with these accepted notions.

The "wisdom of crowds" describes distributed decision making as opposed to decisions being decided by a few. It is important to separate the efficiency of this process from the actual result. The former is the real benefit that can be derived from using many agents. The idea that a better decision is arrived at is just the media misunderstanding the mechanism. Let's not add to that delusion.

If God created it, it has a soul. He created everything from the rocks to you and me and more than we can conceive. Fussing about it either feeds the ego or the wallet - or both. Logic is a human experience and God doesn't play by our rules. Everything on earth is a grain of sand to be tossed and turned by time. Find a way to enjoy your moment. You have a finite amount of time. Every day is a life-experience.

Tom,

There certainly is untapped wisdom in crowds, but following the crowd's level of wisdom can be a vicious circle that is doomed to repeat.

So interesting that you felt this was the topic to share now, as I've been churning on this notion for a few weeks. Might have something to do with reading Seth Godin's new book, "Tribes." Might be the Thanksgiving hangover and desire to appreciate more and improve upon things.

Here's what your post stirred up this morning:

Tom, there will always be cases on both the dumbness and wisdom of crowds, and the latter remains far from being widely accepted (apart from quoting it in public speeches or blog posts).

To me, the question is where to apply the crowds or the (one or more) experts' wisdom, and I do believe that, in general, the potential of many remains underused.

how on earth can these government bailouts even make a dent in the figures mentioned here. There needs to be some very slick thinking applied here and quickly. Personally I think the money should go to the needy not the greedy.Let them fall naturally one at a time until a natural level is found from which we can plan to move forward from with at least some certainty.Most of this crap is journal entry not real cash anyhow, so write it off and start again with proper checks and balances in plac

Yeah..Match Point is really impressive. certainly a company that is growing despite the present economic situation.

They are obviously photoshopped, yes.
But the point is that they are funny. Are they not? So who cares? I'm so sick of everyone complaining that things are photoshopped. Get over it. Most of the stuff you see online is photoshopped anyway . Just have a good laugh and stop overanalyzing things.

All photoshoping journalists go to heaven where they join dogs, rocks and even those who don't get why rocks make aboslute sense.

I'd be pleased if my dog started to crap outside, let alone gets into heaven.

The fact that we can easily call into question whether or not dogs go to heaven only confirms that I can just as easily question god/heaven in its entirety.

The scriptures clearly state that to be in Heaven we must be without Spot
does this settle it ??

riiiiiiight....

still funny, regardless of it's fakeness

That's a great choice!

Geva: You are probably right :-)
Andrew: Having some of the comms team present as observers is perfectly OK. If they were moderating the discussion that would be different.
It is going to be difficult for the MSFT executives to continue the "conversation." After all, they don't even have time to read our blogs or leave comments! How are they going to continue with these relationships?
Also, some of the bloggers don't even write about the enterprise space, I'm puzzled why t