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Mindsharing: The Art of Crowdsourcing Everything
Whether we need to make better financial choices, find the love of our life, or transform our career, crowdsourcing is the key to making quicker, wiser, more objective decisions. But few of us even come close to tapping the full potential of our online personal networks. Lior Zoref offers proven guidelines for applying what he calls "mind sharing" in new ways. For instance, he shows how a mother's Facebook update saved the life of a four-year-old boy, and how a manager used LinkedIn to create a year's worth of market research in less than a day. Zoref's clients are using his techniques to innovate and problem-solve in record time. Now he reveals how crowdsourcing has the ability to supercharge our thinking and upgrade every aspect of our lives.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 9, 2014
21 people are currently reading
201 people want to read
About the author
Lior Zoref
4 books7 followersI'm a crowd wisdom researcher, a speaker, former Microsoft executive, and private consultant for crowdsourcing and digital strategy.
I teach crowdsourcing and digital marketing to MBA students and at the Israeli Marketing Association.
I gave the first ever crowd-sourced TED talk at TED 2012 in Long Beach, California.
I hold a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science from the Technion and currently am a PhD candidate at Bar-Ilan University.
I teach crowdsourcing and digital marketing to MBA students and at the Israeli Marketing Association.
I gave the first ever crowd-sourced TED talk at TED 2012 in Long Beach, California.
I hold a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science from the Technion and currently am a PhD candidate at Bar-Ilan University.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 21, 2017
This book can be summed up in one sentence: If you have a question, ask a crowd of random people about it, because that will give you a good answer, and can sometimes lead to unexpected results.
Also -: Purportedly, when you have a large enough crowd size, the crowd will "beat" the expert at getting the more accurate answer. E.g. A crowd of 100 laypeople will be more likely to give a better answer to a question about, say, physics, than just one physics expert. This is what the book claims, with a few examples given.
The content is largely anecdotal, with the author sharing stories from his personal life and how they support his theory that the mindsharing is the way to go. We are told that you should mindshare everything you possibly can, ranging from what you should eat next, to what career you should opt for, to what you should do when you're ill, etc etc etc. And by the way, don't be fooled by the fancy terminology - "mindshare" here simply means to ask your crowd of "followers" what to do. Yes. It is just that.
Throughout the book, the author tells us how he posts various questions to his "crowd" on Facebook and Twitter mainly, and how the crowd has given him suggestions, ideas, advice, answers and so on, that have more often than not resulted in big and positive life changes. For instance, he credits the crowd for his current "career success", and helping him arrive at solutions to everything from whether he should quit his job at Microsoft, where he had worked for 14 years, to what he should do for his TED talk.
He also describes other cases, such as one of a mother mindsharing her daughter's symptoms on social media, and getting feedback on what her daughter might be suffering from, thus allowing her to take appropriate action.
So how do we "mindshare"?
First, we would have to be on social media, or be using a social media website. The author highly promotes the use of Facebook, Twitter and Quora.
Second, our "crowd" needs to be a "quality" crowd. So having a Twitter account full of bot or bought (yes, it's possible to buy them) followers is useless. As is a Facebook account full of "friends" who don't give two hoots about you.
Additionally, the author warns that your crowd should not comprise close friends or people you know very well, because then their answers will be biased, and you do not benefit from the "wisdom of the [real] crowd". In fact, the further away the connection is from you, the higher the probability of getting a quality answer or lead from that person. As an example, he says that someone he did not know at all but was in his crowd, provided him with the opportunity to speak at TED.
He goes on to expound the multiple benefits and ways in which you can mindshare, and encourages everyone to mindshare everything they possibly can.
The problem with a book like that is, it's all anecdotal, and based solely on one man's experience with mindsharing, supplemented with positive stories he's selectively chosen to focus on simply because they support his point.
What about the countless cases where mindsharing has not yielded useful or advantageous outcomes? Or perhaps even resulted in hugely negative ones? I can think of so many (way too many in fact), such as a young, vulnerable teenager mindsharing her problems to the crowd, and subsequently being attacked by trolls, causing her to become suidical and maybe even end her life.
There are countless more instances where mindsharing has yielded dismal results, and while the author does acknowledge that mindsharing has its downsides, he glosses over the very few of them he has chosen to list so rapidly that you'd hardly even notice they're there (the negative aspects of mindsharing take up probably one-eighth of the total book content).
In short, this book offers a very skewed perspective of what mindsharing is, is almost completely based on just one man's experience with it, is anecdotal and offers no scientific evidence to back up any of its claims (except the study which allegedly demonstrates that a large enough crowd size will produce a better answer), tells us what we already know (common sense), and offers no new insights whatsoever.
When I picked up this title, I was hoping for something more scientifically grounded, with evidence in perhaps cognitive psychology and/or biology or some other scientific field, showing how mindsharing affects us. I certainly wasn't looking for a book based solely on personal stories - which can't be verified - telling me very commonsensical stuff.
I was hoping for an analysis into the hive mind and how people think, how crowds can affect behaviour, change opinion, shape beliefs, etc; the impact of technology and social media on decision-making and how this might influence future trends and so on so forth... issues that all remain unsatisfactorily tackled after reading through this title.
Also -: Purportedly, when you have a large enough crowd size, the crowd will "beat" the expert at getting the more accurate answer. E.g. A crowd of 100 laypeople will be more likely to give a better answer to a question about, say, physics, than just one physics expert. This is what the book claims, with a few examples given.
The content is largely anecdotal, with the author sharing stories from his personal life and how they support his theory that the mindsharing is the way to go. We are told that you should mindshare everything you possibly can, ranging from what you should eat next, to what career you should opt for, to what you should do when you're ill, etc etc etc. And by the way, don't be fooled by the fancy terminology - "mindshare" here simply means to ask your crowd of "followers" what to do. Yes. It is just that.
Throughout the book, the author tells us how he posts various questions to his "crowd" on Facebook and Twitter mainly, and how the crowd has given him suggestions, ideas, advice, answers and so on, that have more often than not resulted in big and positive life changes. For instance, he credits the crowd for his current "career success", and helping him arrive at solutions to everything from whether he should quit his job at Microsoft, where he had worked for 14 years, to what he should do for his TED talk.
He also describes other cases, such as one of a mother mindsharing her daughter's symptoms on social media, and getting feedback on what her daughter might be suffering from, thus allowing her to take appropriate action.
So how do we "mindshare"?
First, we would have to be on social media, or be using a social media website. The author highly promotes the use of Facebook, Twitter and Quora.
Second, our "crowd" needs to be a "quality" crowd. So having a Twitter account full of bot or bought (yes, it's possible to buy them) followers is useless. As is a Facebook account full of "friends" who don't give two hoots about you.
Additionally, the author warns that your crowd should not comprise close friends or people you know very well, because then their answers will be biased, and you do not benefit from the "wisdom of the [real] crowd". In fact, the further away the connection is from you, the higher the probability of getting a quality answer or lead from that person. As an example, he says that someone he did not know at all but was in his crowd, provided him with the opportunity to speak at TED.
He goes on to expound the multiple benefits and ways in which you can mindshare, and encourages everyone to mindshare everything they possibly can.
The problem with a book like that is, it's all anecdotal, and based solely on one man's experience with mindsharing, supplemented with positive stories he's selectively chosen to focus on simply because they support his point.
What about the countless cases where mindsharing has not yielded useful or advantageous outcomes? Or perhaps even resulted in hugely negative ones? I can think of so many (way too many in fact), such as a young, vulnerable teenager mindsharing her problems to the crowd, and subsequently being attacked by trolls, causing her to become suidical and maybe even end her life.
There are countless more instances where mindsharing has yielded dismal results, and while the author does acknowledge that mindsharing has its downsides, he glosses over the very few of them he has chosen to list so rapidly that you'd hardly even notice they're there (the negative aspects of mindsharing take up probably one-eighth of the total book content).
In short, this book offers a very skewed perspective of what mindsharing is, is almost completely based on just one man's experience with it, is anecdotal and offers no scientific evidence to back up any of its claims (except the study which allegedly demonstrates that a large enough crowd size will produce a better answer), tells us what we already know (common sense), and offers no new insights whatsoever.
When I picked up this title, I was hoping for something more scientifically grounded, with evidence in perhaps cognitive psychology and/or biology or some other scientific field, showing how mindsharing affects us. I certainly wasn't looking for a book based solely on personal stories - which can't be verified - telling me very commonsensical stuff.
I was hoping for an analysis into the hive mind and how people think, how crowds can affect behaviour, change opinion, shape beliefs, etc; the impact of technology and social media on decision-making and how this might influence future trends and so on so forth... issues that all remain unsatisfactorily tackled after reading through this title.
May 20, 2017
Boring as hell, full of unneccesary info. Could be summarized is 2 longer sentences.
May 11, 2015
In his book Zoref offers several practical tools for unleashing powerful creativity that you can get from a large crowd as well as success stories of several people who succeeded by using crowdsourcing. The goal of the book is to help you use social media to learn things faster, build stronger relationships with people online, and understand the intricacies of the digital age today. I recommend reading the introduction because it will give you a great overview about what to expect from the book. The book is divided into four parts and I think that each part is one that you can jump in and out of.
For your convenience, we had Lior Zoref on our podcast, The Entrepreneurs Library, to give a deep dive on Mindsharing. With Lior’s experience he gives amazing insight on how to master the art of networking and learning from people on a much larger scale. If you would like to get a more in-depth look from the author himself check out episode 217 on the EL website or you can find the show on iTunes.
For your convenience, we had Lior Zoref on our podcast, The Entrepreneurs Library, to give a deep dive on Mindsharing. With Lior’s experience he gives amazing insight on how to master the art of networking and learning from people on a much larger scale. If you would like to get a more in-depth look from the author himself check out episode 217 on the EL website or you can find the show on iTunes.
September 6, 2016
I was very disappointed in this book. It should have never been a book, a long article - max. The material feels bloated and Lior keeps going around same ideas over and over again. 'Don't overuse your crowd', 'I worked at Microsoft', 'Treat your people like your girlfriend' - common, really useless and repetitive.
The book did not provide any valuable insight and overall felt like an attempt to prove author's personal stuff.
The book did not provide any valuable insight and overall felt like an attempt to prove author's personal stuff.
September 30, 2018
Great Start, nice ideas opens a new channel and aspect of everyday interactions. But then gets too much into personal and only talks about him self, I admit I took it thinking its from a scientific prospective, where results are maybe not so spectacular, but are more systematic. He is Just talking about one success story of his and thats that. That's how individual success works, not collective progress.
Overall, ironically I think collective knowledge failed me in this case, as I piked it up in scientific genre, where it clearly belongs in self help or something of that sort.
Overall, ironically I think collective knowledge failed me in this case, as I piked it up in scientific genre, where it clearly belongs in self help or something of that sort.
May 4, 2015
I was not too interested in this book when I received the email asking if I would mind getting a free copy for a review and such, but I took the plunge and read the provided first part of the book.
Seeing how relevant the information was to my very life, I could not keep myself from wanting to know more about "Crowdsourcing" in my own life. I certainly had done it by ascendent myself a few times, but what if this could be something I could do regularly? Is it even possible.
Lior describes how it was extremely beneficial to have his crowd though any situation that he was willing to share about. I can see that, I can get that and I believe in it as well. Any of my personal successes are tiny babies compared to the stories in this book. You can really get some insight into the possibility and the true heart of what this kind of attitude towards life can get you.
I feel like I am alone (besides my wife) trudging through a desire to have a blog, write a book, and run our children's ministries. I don't know... It feels like no one really has the desire to help. This book has opened my eyes to where I might be failing instead. Maybe my questions are not being asked right. Maybe they are not placed into the right crowd. Heck... even growing the crowd is a nightmare to crawl through.
This mind set it pretty cool and I really do think the world can benefit from it. We can work together to get things done, but we have to be willing to put ourselves on the line. I found after only reading a few chapters I was a bit more willing to speak to others. To share my opinion.
I recommend this book to pretty much anyone because anyone can benefit from the wisdom of the crowd. Also, think it is good for each person to be aware of the possible pitfalls.
I do warn that reading this will not immediately set you up to know exactly how to apply such wisdom to your life, but it is some great information. It is also written in a easy to understand statements that relate to life. I enjoyed it.
Seeing how relevant the information was to my very life, I could not keep myself from wanting to know more about "Crowdsourcing" in my own life. I certainly had done it by ascendent myself a few times, but what if this could be something I could do regularly? Is it even possible.
Lior describes how it was extremely beneficial to have his crowd though any situation that he was willing to share about. I can see that, I can get that and I believe in it as well. Any of my personal successes are tiny babies compared to the stories in this book. You can really get some insight into the possibility and the true heart of what this kind of attitude towards life can get you.
I feel like I am alone (besides my wife) trudging through a desire to have a blog, write a book, and run our children's ministries. I don't know... It feels like no one really has the desire to help. This book has opened my eyes to where I might be failing instead. Maybe my questions are not being asked right. Maybe they are not placed into the right crowd. Heck... even growing the crowd is a nightmare to crawl through.
This mind set it pretty cool and I really do think the world can benefit from it. We can work together to get things done, but we have to be willing to put ourselves on the line. I found after only reading a few chapters I was a bit more willing to speak to others. To share my opinion.
I recommend this book to pretty much anyone because anyone can benefit from the wisdom of the crowd. Also, think it is good for each person to be aware of the possible pitfalls.
I do warn that reading this will not immediately set you up to know exactly how to apply such wisdom to your life, but it is some great information. It is also written in a easy to understand statements that relate to life. I enjoyed it.
August 21, 2015
Decision-making can be very difficult. It is especially difficult when our health, finances, career or relationship is involved. In this book, Mr. Zoref explains how we can find advice and wisdom from our social networks. He believes "mindsharing" is a simple way to use the tools and technology already in place to access and share our greatest human resources....one another.
"We are stronger than me". This is the theme of "Mindsharing" and Mr. Zoref instructs the reader on the most effective ways and places to use social networks to educate, involve and enrich ourselves and our online contacts.
When I first heard about this book, I thought it might be about the popular practice of "crowd sourcing" to finance creative projects. This book is SO MUCH MORE than getting financial contributions from your social networks.
Mr. Zoref goes into great detail in sharing how mindsharing has played a tremendous part in his life since he left Microsoft. Many of his life dreams have come true as a direct result of mindsharing.
An amazing example of mindsharing in the author's life happened when he was suffering from a persistent cough. He went to five different doctors but could not get an accurate diagnosis or relief from the cough. He finally went to his "crowd" on Facebook and described his systems. After two hours, he had many different replies to his request for advice. He found it interesting that eleven of his Facebook friends suggested that it might be whooping cough. He went back to his doctor and insisted that they test him for whooping cough. The diagnosis was clear: whooping cough.
This book is an excellent educational tool to build or improve your social network. Highly Recommended!
FYI ~ I received a print copy of this book from the author's publicist to read and review.
"We are stronger than me". This is the theme of "Mindsharing" and Mr. Zoref instructs the reader on the most effective ways and places to use social networks to educate, involve and enrich ourselves and our online contacts.
When I first heard about this book, I thought it might be about the popular practice of "crowd sourcing" to finance creative projects. This book is SO MUCH MORE than getting financial contributions from your social networks.
Mr. Zoref goes into great detail in sharing how mindsharing has played a tremendous part in his life since he left Microsoft. Many of his life dreams have come true as a direct result of mindsharing.
An amazing example of mindsharing in the author's life happened when he was suffering from a persistent cough. He went to five different doctors but could not get an accurate diagnosis or relief from the cough. He finally went to his "crowd" on Facebook and described his systems. After two hours, he had many different replies to his request for advice. He found it interesting that eleven of his Facebook friends suggested that it might be whooping cough. He went back to his doctor and insisted that they test him for whooping cough. The diagnosis was clear: whooping cough.
This book is an excellent educational tool to build or improve your social network. Highly Recommended!
FYI ~ I received a print copy of this book from the author's publicist to read and review.
August 19, 2015
This book is a valuable, accessible introduction to a tool that will likely become essential to our everyday lives. But... the book was so focused on the perspective (and self-promotion) of the author, that it was difficult to isolate the practical nuggets that would be most useful to readers. Much of the book discussed the use of ones' own social networks, especially Facebook, to mindshare in order to make more informed life decisions. But the reality is, very few people are doing this now. Not only do we need more practical advice than the book provides on what kinds of questions to ask, but we also need advice on how we can begin this social dialogue. The author makes it sound so simple, but I believe there are many barriers to this method that need to be addressed.
Read
May 9, 2015Mindsharing focuses on social media as a crowd source of intelligence, wisdom, and creativity. The book offers plenty of examples, from the way Lior crowdsourced his TED talk and his book, to the experience of others who asked their own social media crowd about relationships, parenting, health issues, and following their dreams. Read my review here: Mindsharing: One More Reason to Love Social Media.
September 21, 2015
This book is stupid and not worth the time to read. It takes the idea of the wisdom of the crowd and tries to apply it to the Facebook world. It then goes on to teach you how to exploit your Facebook friends to find answers to questions big and small.
I couldn't even finish the book.
I couldn't even finish the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
June 27, 2016Good read, really gives you ideas on how to utilize all the Facebook and LinkIn groups you belong to. Interesting the knowledge the group mind possesses. The power for good for good that the group has is does not make headlines. Really an old concept that people have forgotten don't seek.
December 30, 2016
ספר מעניין שנהניתי לקרוא. נהגתי לעקוב אחרי הטוויטר והבלוג של ליאור, כך שחלק מהסיפורים בו היו לי מוכרים וזה היה נחמד להיזכר. מומלץ לכל מי שרוצה להפיק יותר מהנוכחות שלו במדיה החברתית. לדעתי, הוא מיועד בעיקר למתחילים ומשתמשים קלים ולא למשתמשים כבדים.
September 9, 2015
בסיסי וחוזר על עצמו. אפשר היה להסתפק במאמר אינטרנטי עם טיפים, לא מצדיק ספר
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