Overheard on the blogosphere just a few hours ago, courtesy of the ever-insightful Chris Carfi:

"The most interesting things happen where the edges meet."

What edges, you ask? Chris Brogan points us in the right direction:

"I'm finding that the more I reach out and connect to others, the more I need to reach out and connect to more people. It's an interesting circle. The more people I grow into my personal network of contacts, the more I realize that I need something I didn't have before. (...) what does this get me? It gets me what everyone who's interested in doing something new, interesting, challenging, dangerous, fun! might need. It's a list to bounce ideas off. It's a group to whine to when I feel tired. It's an army to reach out to when I want to promote some new harebrained idea of mine (you know I have a million more that I don't launch, right? And I'm always looking to talk with more people. You never know. Often, I've got a way to hook one friend to another if there's something one's working on that the other could be helpful in bringing to life."

"Wise crowds need cognitive diversity ... difference in frames of reference, tools used to solve problems, etc. It simply expands the range of information that is available, and avoids the hurdles and obstacles that a single individual may run in to. Diversity helps to even out the blind spots and biases in a crowd...and the biases and blind spots of "experts" as well."

"The knowledge that we want is often NOT in places that we think to look. We also typically overestimate who "experts" are. There is a difference between "experts" and "expert information." We overestimate what an "expert" says, but a diverse, independent crowd can derive the "expert information." Great point on the "echo chamber" effect -- people get locked into small worlds, even on the internet. (Think of the case where one only gets information from a limitied set of sources.)"

What causes an echo chamber? Why do people, managers, and decision makers tend to go with safe, tried-and-true methodologies? Why do most folks choose to stay away from the edges and look for answers in the most obvious (and uninspired) places? Why do their businesses and products end up looking like everyone else's?

"going with the group" is a way to protect self-reputation. Keynes: "It is better to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." If you go with the group and are wrong, you can easily say "that's what everyone was doing" and protect reputation."

On the other hand, as we've been saying, (back to Chris Carfi):

"The most interesting things happen where the edges meet. Get outside your comfort zone. There are a lot of neat things to learn out there, if you make the effort to meet the people who know them."

Right on.

It's a new week. Jump out of the soft, safe, ruinous middle. Reach for the edges.

(You can thank us later.)