Here is a synopsis on April’s page turners, the first course of my literary feast on collaboration…

Group Genius by Keith Sawyer – Breakthrough innovation is often derived from collaboration. Group flow (aka “in the zone”) occurs when individual skills are comparable, the goal is clear, there is a commitment to listening and communication, and full concentration is enabled.

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky – Technology now enables group action in a way that was previously possible only via institutions (government, religion, business, etc.). With transaction costs for many tasks now equal to zero, collaboration without managerial oversight is not only possible, but ultimately more successful. And if you do fail, you fail fast (which is a good thing).

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki – For some problems it is better to use the collective sagacity of a group than it is to rely on a single expert. The key is to ensure the crowd is diverse, that opinions are formed individually, and some means exists to aggregate views into a collective decision.

I’ll provide more thoughts on how to apply and incorporate this knowledge into 2MinuteGenius in a later post.