I saw a Cigna billboard yesterday that said “Don’t Crowdsource Your Opinions”.  I think the point is that we should think for ourselves. But, aren’t our opinions always “crowdsourced”?  It seems like our opinions are formed by all of the inputs we take in from around us – where we get our news, the ways in which we experience the world, the people with whom we interact all play into how we form our opinions.

Maybe it is even more dangerous to NOT crowdsource our opinions. When we form our opinions in isolation, or without a variety of inputs, we run the risk of being narrow minded (a problem I wrote about last month). So there’s some kind of magic that happens between listening to the crowd and forming our own thoughts that makes us interesting people with independent but informed thoughts. It is tough to work with intention at balancing listening to the crowd and thinking for ourselves, but when we do great things happen.