Cohere

I've been reading 37signal's Signal vs. Noise weblog which I find useful for challenging potential Web 2.0 hyperbole. Also recently I listened to the IT Conversations podcast by James Surowieki: "Independent Individuals and Wise Crowds". Surowieki speaks about studies that show the advantage of a diverse population of independent individuals reaching better conclusions than the advise of a population of only those with expert knowledge. That some randomness and noise evolves to better results.

This means that a degree of diversity and noise is important to getting good signal. That it's not a noise or signal proposition, but that a level of noise is necessary for a deap, rich, meaningful signal. Too much noise and the signal is indistinguishable. To little noise and the signal is flat, monotone, narrowly applicable and uninteresting. So a flux of amount of signal and noise makes for rich, valueable information.