Is the Individual Lost in Today’s Circles?

Web20edu.com’s individual vs. group image

In our current age of crowdsourcing, social sharing and predictive analytics, the benefits of group ideas, collective thinking and knowledge gained through shared data are consistently being touted and celebrated.

These links are just a few examples:

• Top 5 Benefits of Crowdsourcing and Open Innovation
• Crowdsourcing Offers Valuable Benefits for Small Businesses Needing Design Work
• 3 Ways to Win from Social Media Crowdsourcing
• Improve Your SEO with Social Sharing Features
• 4 Ways Agents Benefit From Predictive Analytics

Without doubt, in our increasingly online world, we’re all benefitting from shared information that once was out of reach but now is available at our fingertips.

But, I’d like to ask: do you think the realities of our digital and social media-laden world are posing any risks to individual thinking or individual being?

Have you considered how difficult it may be for one individual’s ideas to cut across the oceans of collective data that seem to be hitting our information channels like the highest of tides?

And, do you think there may be a higher likelihood that you may be individually judged based on the company or Circles that you keep in today’s versus yesterday’s world?

I wonder what Ralph would say about the individual in today’s digital information age?

I’m not sure, so I’ll share (ironic, huh?) two quotes from his famous work,
Self-Reliance:

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

“…the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”