Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

published	December 12th 2006 by Penguin Group
binding	Hardcover
isbn	1591841380 (isbn13: 9781591841388)
ebook
url	http://www.wikinomics.com/blog...
pages	324
description	In just the last few years, traditional collaboration—in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention center—has been superseded by collaborations on an astronomical scale. ...more [close] In just the last few years, traditional collaboration—in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention center—has been superseded by collaborations on an astronomical scale. Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the heaving growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success. A brilliant guide to one of the most profound changes of our time, Wikinomics challenges our most deeply-rooted assumptions about business and will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to understand competitiveness in the twenty-first century. Based on a $9 million research project led by bestselling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing the human genome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding a cure for disease, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, or even building motorcycles. You'll read about: • Rob McEwen, the Goldcorp, Inc. CEO who used open source tactics and an online competition to save his company and breathe new life into an old-fashioned industry. • Flickr, Second Life, YouTube, and other thriving online communities that transcend social networking to pioneer a new form of collaborative production. • Mature companies like Procter & Gamble that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators to form vibrant business ecosystems. An important look into the future, Wikinomics will be your road map for doing business in the twenty-first century. [close]
date added	02-23-07 edit book

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Jamie rated it:

08/08/08

Read in July, 2008

The full title of this book by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams is Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, and it sets out to describe pretty much that --how the Internet and other information technology are creating new business models that capitalize on collaboration, sharing, the wisdom of crowds (so to speak) and distributed work. It's a fascinating topic that anyone who has ventured onto the Internet can see is huge, yet the authors of this particular work seem so cau...more The full title of this book by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams is Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, and it sets out to describe pretty much that --how the Internet and other information technology are creating new business models that capitalize on collaboration, sharing, the wisdom of crowds (so to speak) and distributed work. It's a fascinating topic that anyone who has ventured onto the Internet can see is huge, yet the authors of this particular work seem so caught up in their own breathless hyperbole and big ideas that I had to check a calendar to make sure it wasn't the year 2000 again. As critical as their wikinomics is to commerce and culture, they still manage to oversell it.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of interest in Wikinomics. The book is at its best when it's telling you stories about companies that exemplify the collaborative models they introduce in the book, like the Goldcorp, gold mining company that dumped the entirety of its geological database onto the Internet and said "Okay, there you go. Cash monies for whoever can tell us the best place to dig for gold." And it worked. Really worked. There were also several chapters of interest on computer culture legends like Linux and Internet staples like Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, Second Life, and Amazon.com. This is where the book is at its best, telling you how these endeavors came to be and they they used the wikinomics principles to succeeded where their competitors (when they had them) failed. They even throw descriptions of a few tricks of wikinomics at play in places you might not expect them, such as in more aged companies like Proctor and Gamble.

And all this stuff makes sense. I've seen first-hand what can come of providing your fans with the ability to create content, collaborate, and share specialized knowledge. When I worked at GameSpy, a startup company at least partially dedicated to videogame fandom, the company built itself on the backs of people running fan sites and organizing online (and real life) communities around their favorite videogames. And the book makes good cases for how even companies whose products are NOT 1s and 0s can benefit from these principles, like outsourcing difficult research problems, using and developing open source software, or drawing on Creative Commons licenses.

The problem, however, is that the authors of Wikinomics are too busy chugging their own Kool-Aid to take a step back and get some perspective. They literally say things like how these principles --not the Internet or the computer, but just these principles of collaboration through them-- is as big a deal as the printing press or the Enlightenment-with-a-capital-E. No, really, I'm not putting words in their mouths, they really say this. Throughout all the discussions, the implication and sometimes even the flatly stated proclamation is that companies who aren't doing these things are going to die --quickly and spectacularly. Keep in mind that we're not talking about whether companies use e-mail or have a web site. The authors are saying that there is no business that won't rely on these specific collaborative techniques to prosper. Tell me if that doesn't seem like a bit of an overstatement.

Relatedly, it kind of irked me that the authors gave so little --some, but ultimately little-- consideration to the dark side of all this. They seemed to underplay the effect of everything from annoying trolls to saboteurs to corporate espionage, all of which are made possible or exacerbated by the kinds of business practices they discuss. This isn't a huge point, but it's something that I don't feel like they honestly or completely addressed.

Still, Wikinomics is worth a read for the parts that give examples and mini-bios on many of the Internet companies that you probably not only have heard of, but use. You'll just need a pinch or two of salt for the rest....less

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