Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 2,382 ratings · 367 reviews

A revelatory examination of how the wildfirelike spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects-for good and for ill
A handful of kite hobbyists scattered around the world find each other online and collaborate on the most radical improvement i...more A revelatory examination of how the wildfirelike spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects-for good and for ill
A handful of kite hobbyists scattered around the world find each other online and collaborate on the most radical improvement in kite design in decades. A midwestern professor of Middle Eastern history starts a blog after 9/11 that becomes essential reading for journalists covering the Iraq war. Activists use the Internet and e-mail to bring offensive comments made by Trent Lott and Don Imus to a wide public and hound them from their positions. A few people find that a world-class online encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers and open for editing by anyone, a wiki, is not an impractical idea. Jihadi groups trade inspiration and instruction and showcase terrorist atrocities to the world, entirely online. A wide group of unrelated people swarms to a Web site about the theft of a cell phone and ultimately goads the New York City police to take action, leading to the culprit's arrest.

With accelerating velocity, our age's new technologies of social networking are evolving, and evolving us, into new groups doing new things in new ways, and old and new groups alike doing the old things better and more easily. You don't have to have a MySpace page to know that the times they are a changin'. Hierarchical structures that exist to manage the work of groups are seeing their raisons d’être swiftly eroded by the rising technological tide. Business models are being destroyed, transformed, born at dizzying speeds, and the larger social impact is profound.

One of the culture's wisest observers of the transformational power of the new forms of tech-enabled social interaction is Clay Shirky, and Here Comes Everybody is his marvelous reckoning with the ramifications of all this on what we do and who we are. Like Lawrence Lessig on the effect of new technology on regimes of cultural creation, Shirky's assessment of the impact of new technology on the nature and use of groups is marvelously broad minded, lucid, and penetrating; it integrates the views of a number of other thinkers across a broad range of disciplines with his own pioneering work to provide a holistic framework for understanding the opportunities and the threats to the existing order that these new, spontaneous networks of social interaction represent. Wikinomics, yes, but also wikigovernment, wikiculture, wikievery imaginable interest group, including the far from savory. A revolution in social organization has commenced, and Clay Shirky is its brilliant chronicler.(less)

Paperback, 352 pages

Published February 24th 2009 by Penguin Books (first published February 28th 2008)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Race Against The Machine by Erik Brynjolfsson

Digital Economy

9th out of 10 books — 3 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jul 12, 2008 Ken rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Why did you log in to GoodReads today? What is behind the explosion of Internet-based social networking in all its forms, from e-mail, to listservs, to Facebook, Flickr and Twitter? And more important: what does this new wave of truly participatory media bode for the future?

Clay Shirky takes on these big questions in Here Comes Everybody, and the result is an engaging, eye-opening book that draws upon social change theory, economics, and psychology. Shirky contends that the Internet, cell phones...more Why did you log in to GoodReads today? What is behind the explosion of Internet-based social networking in all its forms, from e-mail, to listservs, to Facebook, Flickr and Twitter? And more important: what does this new wave of truly participatory media bode for the future?

Clay Shirky takes on these big questions in Here Comes Everybody, and the result is an engaging, eye-opening book that draws upon social change theory, economics, and psychology. Shirky contends that the Internet, cell phones and other two-way communications technologies have lowered the barriers to group formation, such that people are organizing to great effect in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago. This is taking place in all sorts of ways: social groups, political action groups, photo sharing, news and information sharing, lifestyle support groups, the list goes on and on.

Shirky believes that the power of these new tools at our disposal will be harnessed collectively in a positive direction. He acknowledges that many individuals seek to disrupt cooperative efforts (look at spammers, or "trolls" on mailing lists, for instance). Tools that are overrun by those seeking to disrupt them, though, were flawed in some way, and will fall away in favor of tools such as Wikipedia that correct for such vandalism.

What of corporate and governmental entities trying to screen/censor Internet content? Shirky believes that such efforts are doomed to failure: due to the nature of the technology itself, people will find a way around those attempted impositions. So far, world events bear out his perspective.

Shirky doesn't deal much with inequities in access to these communications tools. But that may be peripheral to his point: after all, not everyone had access to a printing press, yet its relatively widespread availability led to great change all over the world. And anyway, Shirky isn't crazy enough to say that the new ease of organizing will eradicate inequality throughout the world.

Here Comes Everybody is an important counterpoint to those who think that social networking is just a popularity contest for kids, or who bemoan the "narcissism" of people who put their information into MySpace. There's a whole lot more going on there, and people of all generations are beginning to figure that out.
(less)

7 likes · like · see review

May 08, 2008 Josh Braun rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: digital-age, nonfiction

Reprinted from my website:

Clay Shirky's new book, Here Comes Everybody is at once highly readable and a massive undertaking. He sets out to explain, as many recent authors have done, how new communication technologies and the people who use them are changing the world we live in. This is a task so large that, to my mind, no one's really done it successfully. But watching people try is always enlightening. In effect, reading through books on Internet and society is like watching a multitude of...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 29, 2009 Kimberly Lightle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book really hit home in terms of the amazing changes that are occurring because of the read/write web and the digital tools that are available to everybody. Amazing cultural and social shifts are occurring. One of my favorite quotes from the book (and there are many) is - We're not dealing with information overload, that's been happening since the 1500s with the invention of the printing press, we're dealing with filter failure.

3 likes · like · see review

Feb 24, 2009 Lilly G rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book's all about the rise of social tools (think twitter, facebook, meetup, etc) and how the lowered costs of social interactions have changed group dynamics. It's a great overview of the various movements and episodes they've inspired (who thought I'd look upon Twitter with such respect?) and of the role of technology in our lives. I thought it was well-written and a quick read, and it made me feel kinda cool again. You digg?

1 like · like · see review

Aug 22, 2010 Mike W rated it 2 of 5 stars

Clay Shirky's book is enjoyable and worth reading, though the main point--that technological change has lowered communications costs tremendously, thereby also encouraging group formation--is obvious. The book is really a collection of anecdotes illustrating this central point. These anecdotes cover a wide range--from the creation of Wikipedia to a fashion obsessed blogger undermining a military coup to an online chat group for anorexics--and are generally interesting.

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 06, 2009 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone!

Shelves: nonfiction

Fantastic stuff. I'm already finding ways to use this (or at least have seen it) in so many places in my life. Those who are technological immigrants (Baby boomers, and early Gen-Xers) should read this to keep up on what is happening, and technological natives should read this to make sense of why the old way will be the ruin of some businesses (and non-profits, and political campaigns, and clubs, and...).

Of particular fascination to me was the way he talked about explicit and implicit promises...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 21, 2011 Paul Signorelli rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: collaboration, community, social-networking, technology

Clay Shirky, whose writing and presentations on Internet technology and social change are consistently sharp and engaging, provides a from-the-field report on our continuing evolution from hierarchical, highly organized entities to the far less formal collaborations fostered by social networking resources. “Social tools provide…action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive,” he reminds us (p. 47), and the result is explosive in terms of...more Clay Shirky, whose writing and presentations on Internet technology and social change are consistently sharp and engaging, provides a from-the-field report on our continuing evolution from hierarchical, highly organized entities to the far less formal collaborations fostered by social networking resources. “Social tools provide…action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive,” he reminds us (p. 47), and the result is explosive in terms of loosely organized groups’ ability to produce results previously unimagined. “Ridiculously easy group-forming matters because the desire to be part of a group that shares, cooperates, or acts in concert is a basic human instinct that has always been constrained by transaction costs. Now that group-forming has gone from hard to ridiculously easy, we are seeing an explosion of experiments with new groups and new kinds of groups,” he explains (p. 54). His explorations take us down a variety of paths, including what happens to the concept of “a professional” when social media tools open up a profession such as journalism to everyone through blogging; we’re also treated to an exploration of how collaboration succeeds in producing magnificent resources including Wikipedia. He is far from serving as an unquestioning cheerleader for what he observes in the use of social networking tools: “…a good social tool is like a good woodworking tool—it must be designed to fit the job being done, and it must help people do something they actually want to do,” he notes (p. 265). By the end of "Here Comes Everybody," Shirky helps us establish a bit of perspective on the changes through which we are living and in which we are participating: “The invention of tools that facilitate group formation is less like ordinary technological change and more like an event, something that has already happened. As a result, the important questions aren’t about whether these tools will spread or reshape society but rather how they do so,” he concludes (p. 300). For those who are still wondering why so many people are diving into collaboration through online social networking tools, Shirky serves as a sympathetic and attractive guide.(less)

like · see review

Apr 09, 2011 Bojan Tunguz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Unless you've been living under a rock over the past few years, you would have noticed an explosion in ways that people interact, collaborate and exchange information online. We are probably undergoing the greatest technological shift since the advent of e-mail, and it'd probably hard to grasp all the ramifications that profound new change is heralding. Every year now, or sometimes every month, several new information terms and products enter our collective consciousness, terms like blog, Twitte...more

like · see review

Apr 20, 2010 Dave Emmett rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: groups, organization, social-media, technology, 2010, vpl

This book was really good. It looks at how technological changes are transforming the way people come together to form groups and affect the world.

That quote, “More is different”, sums up a lot of the challenges that are presented in the book (as well as the opportunities). A group of 100 people isn’t 10 times more complex than a group of 10; it’s an entirely different beast. And with the technology we have today (blogs, texting, twitter, email), it has never been easier to get 100 or 1000 peopl...more

like · see review

Mar 18, 2010 FiveBooks rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fivebooks-on-the-internet

Writer Lev Grossman has chosen to discuss Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens When People Come Togethe r on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject- The World Wide Web, saying that:

"...A lot of ink has been spilled, much of it by me, about the Web 2.0 revolution, and how it changes the way business and art and socialising and political organisation get done. Shirky is simply the best person at articulating what’s very weird and new about what’s going on...."

The full in...more

like · see review

Aug 26, 2009 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, just-for-fun

This should be required reading for all librarians, if for nothing else than Chapter 3, in which he mentions how the people inside the institutions have the hardest time seeing how the institution is becoming obsolete. (yikes! but true!) AND Chapter 5 in which he explains how Wikipedia works. I also loved the later chapters on the importance of failures, and how institutions often have a hard time letting things go because they've already paid for them.

This "failure"concept first occurred to me...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jul 10, 2009 Katy Dickinson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: business-and-technology

I very much enjoyed reading _Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations_ by Clay Shirky (2008). Some quotes from Shirky on the practical and current use of the web and technology:

"... many of the significant changes are based not on the fanciest, newest bits of technology but on simple, easy-to-use
tools like e-mail, mobile phones, and websites, because those are the tools most people have access to and, critically, are comfortable using in their daily lives. Revolution d...more

like · see review

Jul 05, 2009 Shehab Hamad rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

lay is a great social web commentator. He’s part of an elite circle of thinkers and influencers alongside Seth Godin, Sree Sreenivasan, John Battelle. He’s often able to distill some of the great web-enabled transformations taking place into amusing tidbits like this one on cognitive surplus: how this era of participation is replacing the social surplus ( of TV).

The book sets out to explain some of the massive changes that have contributed to the contemporary successes of linux, wikipedia and th...more

like · see review

Jun 23, 2009 Catherine rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, mainstream-us

If you're someone who wonders what those kids are up to these days, and you've heard of facebook but don't know what it does, and someone mentioned twitter to you once, but that pretty much escapes you - this is the book for you.

Needles to say, it was not the book for me.

Much of this book is spent describing various social networking / new media sites, and exploring their function as part of an altered vision of social organizing. The internet, runs Shirky's argument, allows users to cut out the...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 05, 2012 Tasha Watts rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody" is an anecdote-rich look into the changing world of social media and digital collaboration. He uses examples as varied as one man's quest to bring a phone thief to justice to Thai censorship during a military coup.

Perhaps one of the most important things that I garnered from this book is the switch we are undergoing from a vertical hierarchy to something much more spread out and amorphous. Almost monthly a new website becomes popular that enables users to upl...more

like · see review

Jan 25, 2009 John rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, advertising, business, culturalstudies, current_affairs, epublishing, knowledgemanagement, marketing, tech, usability

In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky looks at how the traditional costs associated with organizations have virtually disappeared with the advent of social media in the past five years. Shirky looks at how technological advances have changed the threshold for large scale interaction. The book is filled with stories from the web that illustrate how e-mail, Twitter, listservs and websites has allowed people to enact real change throughout the world. From a group that hounds a teenager to give back...more

like · see review

Jun 23, 2012 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A good examination of the ways new social tools have changed our society and will continue to do so. Although the book is already more than four years old, an eternity in the world of Internet commentary, most of what he has to say is still valid—and because his tone is measured and he avoids gee-whizzing, it's not hard to imagine where he would have gone with his ideas in 2012.

Shirky takes off from the concept of Coasian economics, market theory originated by Ronald Coase in 1937 that looked at...more

like · see review

Dec 01, 2011 Nicholas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: professional-development, audio-books, codices

I'm having trouble figuring out exactly why I like Clay Shirky so much. I have a few candidates for the main reason. First, he tends to have insightful things to say about topics I'm interested in. My favorite thing he has done is his lecture "Ontology is Overrated". However, while I'm not accusing him of being derivative, I can trace many of the ideas I like best in Shirky's work to Yochai Benkler.

So that leads me to think that perhaps what I like best about Shirky's work is his particular gen...more

like · see review

Jan 09, 2010 MisterFweem rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What I find most fascinating about Clay Shirky’s 2008 book Here Comes Everybody is how outdated it is.
He barely mentions Twitter – he says it came into being while the book was being written. Facebook is mentioned in passing, in favor of MySpace – though he does observe that Facebook is white collar, while MySpace is more blue collar.

And though I think he overemphasizes the impact social technology – the Internet, e-mail, mobile phones, et cetera – has had on removing obstacles for organizing an...more

like · see review

Jul 10, 2009 Natali rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This may be one of the best ethnographies of our time. Clay Shirky explores the ways in which technology has altered news consumption, social work, networking, self expression, and more. He argues that new media technologies are as revolutionary as the printing press and movable type once were.

Shirky takes examples from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Digg. Those tools are still the leaders in social media but he could just as easily have written this five years ago using Friendster, Yahoo Group...more This may be one of the best ethnographies of our time. Clay Shirky explores the ways in which technology has altered news consumption, social work, networking, self expression, and more. He argues that new media technologies are as revolutionary as the printing press and movable type once were.

Shirky takes examples from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Digg. Those tools are still the leaders in social media but he could just as easily have written this five years ago using Friendster, Yahoo Groups, Kodak Gallery, or Lycos. The message would have been the same: people use the tools at their disposal to be heard. The beauty of open source and the socialistic nature of the Web allows the next generation of social media to learn from the first generation and create increasingly effective tools. It can only get better.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in user behavior and (post)modern communication. A few thoughts that I am still chewing on include:

"The definition of journalist, seemingly a robust and stable profession, turns out to be tied to particular forms of production as well."
So when the barriers to production drop and anyone can disseminate news, how does a professional journalist adapt and remain relevant?

"This potential seems as if it should allow everyone to interact with everyone else, undoing the one-way nature of television. But calling that potential interactivity would be like calling a newspaper interactive because it publishes letters to the editor."
Precisely my thinking when I see newscasters pushing their Twitter accounts on the air! So what is true interactivity in mass media? I don't think we've figured it out yet.

"We have lost the clean distinctions between communications media and broadcast media."
Can we get it back? More importantly, is that desirable? And if it is not desirable, will the outcome be a more informed news audience that places different (more socially responsible) demands on the professional media? Or is that overly Utopic? (less)

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 30, 2009 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As I compile the bible for our new millennium, I will include Here Comes Everybody as "The Book of Clay". In his exploration of the dramatically augmented ability for humans to organize, Clay Shirky exposes the power and depth that the current social media revolution will use to change society forever. What Shirky doesn't do is offer solutions. Solutions in the sense of, "Here's how we are going to use citizen journalists to replace newspapers" or "Musicians can do this to ensure album sales". B...more As I compile the bible for our new millennium, I will include Here Comes Everybody as "The Book of Clay". In his exploration of the dramatically augmented ability for humans to organize, Clay Shirky exposes the power and depth that the current social media revolution will use to change society forever. What Shirky doesn't do is offer solutions. Solutions in the sense of, "Here's how we are going to use citizen journalists to replace newspapers" or "Musicians can do this to ensure album sales". But that's ok, simply understanding the ubiquitous internet and how it is changing everything will help individuals answer those questions through start-ups and business ventures.

Simply to exist that the size of major corporations, the organizations take on all the costs of management. Every organization exists in contradiction to itself. It is a paradox. It directs group effort but its resources must be drained to support that coordination. Org charts and managerial structures were developed to solve the explosions of complexity from railroad growth in the 1840's. But when designed, a key component of the segmented managerial infrastructure was that daily reports should not, 'embarrass principal officers nor lessen their influence with subordinates'. Hence the organization that seems like little more than an endless stream of wastepaper baskets, designed to keep information from the CEO. It is this very structure that social media tools collapse because they need no principal org chart. Information can rise and fall through "hierarchies" because of their implicit structure. All we need to do is filter. In the past it was filter then publish, now that publishing costs have collapsed its become publish then filter. Example: photography has collapsed as a profession because of the formerly specialized infrastructure that formed the profession, it has become accessible to everyone. Now the true value in photography lies in communities like Flickr that tag, comment and filter the world of photography for end content viewers.

And our society is in a revolution. Revolutions don't occur when a society adopts new technologies. The technologies we use now have been available for decades. What makes the internet a revolution is that it is quickly changing our behaviours. Hence journalisms transistion from a profession into an activity.

Sadly though, the current institutional structures have ensured that everyone remembers you saying yes to a failure instead of saying no to a radical but promising idea. Something I have faced when pitching CLT Blog. What? You have no true competitors? Well, maybe our competitor is the status quo. Investors have to move away from the safe choices and into looking for Taleb's Black Swans.

Institutions have existed because they lower the transaction costs between individuals. However, working for a major corporation, I can do many functions of office work with tools from social media start ups rather than through the "approved" tools like MS Outlook and Microsoft SharePoint. Give me Gmail and Dropbox any day.

Sadly, as Bill Joy said best, "No matter who you are the smart people work for someone else." but that is changing as expertise becomes infinitely accessibly through Twitter and blogging.

Shirky ends the book with an examination of how new social media companies can build tools to harness the ability of people to organize on the internet. The key of new internet business is answering, 'Do the people who like your software take care of each other' rather than answering, 'What is your business model'. Creating a promise to users is the key component of media that harnesses communities. Second, the tool must be easy and intiutive. But perhaps most importantly, the bargain between the tool and the users must be upheld.

This book is a wealth of case studies and examples. My own neighborhood of North Charlotte even got a few shout-outs for its Stay-at-Home-Moms meetups.

As someone involved deeply with the future of citizen journalism through CLT Blog this was an essential read and should be for anyone preparing to know the revolution we are experiencing intimately.(less)

like · see review

Feb 09, 2012 Jakub Swiatczak rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This probably should not have been a book. It probably should have been an essay, in Wired magazine or maybe in The Atlantic. Shirky is a good writer, he writes clearly and entertainingly, but there just isn't enough substance in here to justify an almost 400 page book. There are a few [maybe two or 3] central ideas that are then expanded upon, examples are given, then more examples are given, and then finally padding is added.

I got the same kind of feeling reading this book as I do reading Mal...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 05, 2009 getAbstract rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Useful look at how electronic and social media are transforming society

Author Clay Shirky tackles a daunting task: He sets out to explain how new electronic media are transforming society. In itself, that sounds common enough, but Shirky’s focus and specificity raise his book to a level of much greater value and utility than its peers. He examines the social nature of human beings, and analyzes how tools ranging from e-mail to text messages change the way people organize into groups. His style i...more

like · see review

Dec 26, 2008 ~*kath*~ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A fascinating insight into the changes in communication, social behaviours and technology in our world. Easy to read, relevant to the everyday person and thought provoking, it's well worth giving a try.

1 like · like · see review

Apr 06, 2009 Cbuck rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: social-informatics

"The number of people who are willing to start something is smaller, much smaller, that the number of people who are willing to contribute once someone starts something."

For anyone interested in social informatics, and understanding the evolution underway in the social networking underbelly of business, politics, and society-at-large, this book is an essential read. I found myself constantly jotting down notes, wanting to follow up on references he mentions, and finding applicable ideas for my w...more

like · see review

Nov 28, 2008 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What Stood Out Most:
When I was reading Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody- the power of organizing without organization, what stood out most for me was the idea of the “power of group action, given the right tools” (Page 7). Throughout this book Shriky shows exactly how powerful groups of people are when they use tools to help them. A young woman looses her cell phone and uses the power of blogs, web pages and e-mail to get it back and to catch the thief. Citizens of the country of Belarus...more What Stood Out Most:
When I was reading Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody- the power of organizing without organization, what stood out most for me was the idea of the “power of group action, given the right tools” (Page 7). Throughout this book Shriky shows exactly how powerful groups of people are when they use tools to help them. A young woman looses her cell phone and uses the power of blogs, web pages and e-mail to get it back and to catch the thief. Citizens of the country of Belarus use blogs to organize flash mobs who participate in peaceful protests against government. Protests on college campuses are organized through Facebook groups. Countless numbers of people change entries in Wikipedia every day. Then they start their own wikis and use them in private and public ways. These are just a few examples of the power of group action through social networking and technology that can be found throughout this book.

Theme:
This book focuses on human beings being social creatures and how we use that social nature to collaborate and work together. Shirky states, “We are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations” (Page 20-21). The book shows how people can join together and make a difference, sometimes with little planning. All it takes is one person to start a blog or wiki on a topic that hits home with a particular demographic of people and soon changes are happening.

Reaction:
I liked how Clay Shirky used real life stories to show his points. Typically I am more of a fiction person. I like books with stories. I do not like reading “text book” writing. Normally I would not go to the bookstore and purchase a book like this one. Because the author used interesting stories it made the book easier to read and more interesting. These real life accounts helped him illustrate his points in a way that was easier for me to understand. I did not loose interest as quickly as I thought I would.

Shirky makes great points that really provoke the reader to think about the the digital world around us. I agree with his ideas and think that he did a good job explaining them.

Connection:
Social networking and organizing online has now become the norm. Everyone, from every age group, is participating in this. Students are on Facebook and MySpace. They blog and participate in wikis. Schools cannot ignore this anymore. We must teach our children how to handle this appropriately. Shirky mentions one incident where a newspaper’s wiki was vandalized so much that it was taken down almost immediately after it was created. At some point schools are going to have to take responsibility for teaching student how to participate in these internet organizations in a mature and responsible way so that incidents like this one occur less frequently. Ultimately our students need to know how to behave in groups, especially on the Internet, so that things that they post or participate in do not negatively affect them later on in life. They need to be responsible contributors to society. High schools may need to start thinking about classes that will teach students these skills.

Conclusion:
I would give this book four out of five stars. It really makes the reader think about how our world organizes online and how that organization has the power to change our world. I would recommend this book to anyone who is new to social networking or who is a little put off by it. The book definitely shows the advantages of social networking and organization. It demonstrates how easy it is to be a part of an organization the has the potential to make meaningful change. I also think that teachers and administrators should read this book. It will teach them about all the possible ways that their students are using (or could use in the future) social networking and online organizing and may help them to see that this is not all bad and scary. It might help them be more open to bring some of it into their curriculum.
(less)

like · see review

Jan 06, 2013 Janet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book had been on my bookshelf for a while. Even though it was published in 2008, it is still a valuable read for anyone interested in social networks, technology and social change. I generally think of my use of social media as a communication tool for general engagement definitely not political reasons but I suppose collective action and social change involves changed behavior and policy. Shirky provides historical and international perspectives that help us understand this point in time....more

like · see review

Jan 18, 2010 Georg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english, non-fiction

This book unfolds and explains an interesting theory about the internet and how it changed modern communication, our day-to-day life and our thinking. I liked his description of the steps from the medieval scribers to Gutenberg's printing technique, from the telephone and the radio/TV to the first years of the Internet and then the generation of Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. It opened my eyes how much this revolution arose from economic (and time sparing) facts and rules and how professional wri...more This book unfolds and explains an interesting theory about the internet and how it changed modern communication, our day-to-day life and our thinking. I liked his description of the steps from the medieval scribers to Gutenberg's printing technique, from the telephone and the radio/TV to the first years of the Internet and then the generation of Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. It opened my eyes how much this revolution arose from economic (and time sparing) facts and rules and how professional writers saw the wrong danger for their professional future (not "America Today", but "The New York Times-online"). I learnt a lot of details I have never been aware of: That flash-mobs took place in Belorus for political reasons, that the Germans tanks in the Blitzkrieg were inferior to the French ones, but were equipped with radios, the development of Small World Patterns, and Linus and Meetup, and many other interesting details as well.

Now we get two the two stars I did not give to this book. First it's the lack of speed, especially in the beginning chapters. I mean how many words do you need to explain that it is slightly cheaper, quicker and more efficient to create a website to reach a million of readers in 2006 A.D. than to do the same by distributing hieroglyphics in 2006 B.C.? I think 34 words are enough to get he idea, but Shirky thinks it should take at least 20 pages.

Second – and that's probably only my problem – I have too often read about the "Birthday Paradox" in the last months. In many books and in most of the big papers. Seems to be en vogue nowadays. And it never works for me. Asked if I would take a bet if two of 50 people share the same birthday I would always say yes. Not because I look through the obscure rules of probability-math because I – as a professional gambler (lawyer) – take ANY wager no matter how bad my chances are. The same has to be said for the Evergreen “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. Next time I will read about his I will swear to whistle-blow everyone for every atrocity, no matter if he’s guilty or no
(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 06, 2009 Lena rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: marketing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Well, it's now official: I made it to page 161 and stopped reading. I've now returned it to the library.

I realized a couple of things that made me stop:
1) The parts I enjoyed were the parts that I knew less about. The parts I knew a little bit more about (community based media and participatory art practices) contained some big factual holes or innacuracies. This made me skeptical about the parts I knew less about and therefore couldn't get so mad/annoyed/whatever about the things he glossed ov...more

like · see review

May 16, 2009 Geoff Hankerson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fantastic book on the way social networks and the Web in general are extending our natural social behavior exponentially. Clay Shirky puts this in historical perspective with a lot of comparison to the printing press which I think is the right comparison. It's hard to imagine public libraries, universities, newspapers, and nation states without the printing press.

Today, the newspaper industry is teetering on the brink of collapse. Shirky points out that we are in a transformative age where the...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Watch Clay Shirky Speak on this book (42 min)	2	21	May 14, 2012 12:36pm

combine
Other Editions (11)

More editions...

Genres

Non Fiction

123 users

Business

55 users

Science > Technology

46 users

Sociology

22 users

Social Science > Social Media

21 users

Computers > Internet

20 users

Social

15 users

Internet > Web

14 users

Culture

13 users

Science

9 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Clay Shirky

Mr. Shirky divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, web services, and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web. Current clients include Nokia, GBN, th...more Mr. Shirky divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, web services, and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web. Current clients include Nokia, GBN, the Library of Congress, the Highlands Forum, the Markle Foundation, and the BBC.

In addition to his consulting work, Mr. Shirky is an adjunct professor in NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where he teaches courses on the interrelated effects of social and technological network topology -- how our networks shape culture and vice-versa. His current course, Social Weather, examines the cues we use to understand group dynamics in online spaces and the possible ways of improving user interaction by redesigning our social software to better reflect the emergent properties of groups.

Mr. Shirky has written extensively about the internet since 1996. Over the years, he has had regular columns in Business 2.0, FEED, OpenP2P.com and ACM Net_Worker, and his writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, Wired, Release 1.0, Computerworld, and IEEE Computer. He has been interviewed by Slashdot, Red Herring, Media Life, and the Economist's Ebusiness Forum. He has written about biotechnology in his "After Darwin" column in FEED magazine, and serves as a technical reviewer for O'Reilly's bioinformatics series. He helps program the "Biological Models of Computation" track for O'Reilly's Emerging Technology conferences.

Mr. Shirky frequently speaks on emerging technologies at a variety of forums and organizations, including PC Forum, the Internet Society, the Department of Defense, the BBC, the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Highlands Forum, the Economist Group, Storewidth, the World Technology Network, and several O'Reilly conferences on Peer-to-Peer, Open Source, and Emerging Technology.

Prior to his appointment at NYU, Mr. Shirky was a Partner at the investment firm The Accelerator Group in 1999-2001, an international investment group with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and London. The Accelerator Group was focused on early stage firms, and Mr. Shirky's role was technological due diligence and product strategy.

Mr. Shirky was the original Professor of New Media in the Media Studies department at Hunter College, where he created the department's first undergraduate and graduate offerings in new media, and helped design the current MFA in Integrated Media Arts program.

Prior to his appointment at Hunter, he was the Chief Technology Officer of the NYC-based Web media and design firm Site Specific, where he created the company's media tracking database and server log analysis software. Site Specific was later acquired by CKS Group, where he was promoted to VP Technology, Eastern Region.

Before there was a Web, he was Vice-President of the New York chapter of the EFF, and wrote technology guides for Ziff-Davis, including a guide to email-accessible internet resources, and a guide to the culture of the internet. He appeared as an expert witness on internet culture in Shea vs. Reno, a case cited in the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Communications Decency Act in 1996.

Mr. Shirky graduated from Yale College with a degree in art, and prior to falling in love with the internet, he worked as a theater director and designer in New York. His company, Hard Place Theater, staged "non-fiction theater", theatrical collages of found documents.

Mr. Shirky's writings are archived at shirky.com, and he currently runs the N.E.C. mailing list for his writings on networks, economics, and culture.(less)

More about Clay Shirky...

Books by Clay Shirky

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

Socially Intelligent Computing (Wired To Connect: Dialogues On Social Intelligence, 3)

Uno per uno, tutti per tutti. Il potere di organizzare senza organizzare

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Here Comes Everyb...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Here Comes Everybody: ...

“When we change the way we communicate, we change society” — 29 people liked it

“Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.” — 16 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
avg rating	preview: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations Goodreads rating: 3.85 (2382 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6062744-here-comes-everybody?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348272440l/6062744.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6062744-here-comes-everybody?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky[/url]

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website