• The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, Scott Page, Princeton University Press, 2007

The Difference  is about how we think in groups, about how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity-not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities. The Difference reveals that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with enormous IQs than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality. Page shows how groups that display a range of perspectives outperform groups of like-minded experts. Diversity yields superior outcomes.

• A Logic of Diversity, Scott Page

• Part 1: An Introduction to Diversity

• Part 2: The Implications of Diversity

Project coordinator: Richard Tanter
17 May 2008