If you attend a conference, and people don't randomly state "web 2.0" or "world is flat", you know that the people attending just aren't cool. While "wisdom of crowds" hasn't hit that level of hype, it is becoming a common part of the language of many educational technologists. The result - the term becomes confused, used in the wrong context, and subject to incorrect applications. Henry Jenkins provides needed clarity-
Collective Intelligence vs. Wisdom of Crowds: "Surowiecki's model [wisdom of crowds] seeks to aggregate anonymously produced data, seeing the wisdom emerging when a large number of people each enter their own calculations without influencing each other's findings. Levy's model [collective intelligence] focuses on the kinds of deliberative process that occurs in online communities as participants share information, correct and evaluate each other's findings, and arrive at a consensus understanding." (via Smart Mobs)