A great article by Charles Leadbetter on the Wisdom of Crowds. Without doubt one of Web 2.0's greatest impacts has been the potential engagement of the public. And given the chance people do contribute. They want to be part of the conversation. People will pick and choose their level of engagement. They may just vote or subscribe to a view point. They may also feel engaged enough to contribute with a comment and some will active organise and lead.

I look back on my career in product marketing where we spent tens and hundreds of thousands of £'s trying to engage with our prospect and customer bases. We ran surveys, had user groups, published magazines, held 'open sessions' and round-tables. We did get engagement but at a lot of cost and effort. It took time to organise and manage.

Now look at what can be done using Web 2 social networking to get feedback.

Innovation is often seen as being 'out of the box' thinking. Who is more out of the box than the customers? They do not see the real and imagined barriers companies have to innovation. Companies that can tap into 'mass innovation' will have a massive competitive edge in the future.

Charles is speaking on 26th March at the British Library. I will be going down to listen.