Rawn Shah

We live on Internet time whether we like it or not. Life goes on and seems to bring new innovations with almost endless regularity. Yet, when you take a big long look at it after years at a time we find ourselves shocked at how much as changed. To pr

We live on Internet time whether we like it or not. Life goes on and seems to bring new innovations with almost endless regularity. Yet, when you take a big long look at it after years at a time we find ourselves shocked at how much as changed. To prognosticate the future on the Internet timescale is a risky venture even looking year to year. When one understands the fundamentals of what is changing, per rare individuals like Don Tapscott, it is possible been right on the target even over decades. In his 20th anniversary edition of The Digital Economy (McGraw-Hill, 2014), we can take a look back at the bright glimpses into what was and look forward at what could be.

As I read this version written 20 years later, updated with many new pre-chapter pages, I find both some of his predictions that have come to pass, as well as things that are still actively underway. Reading this book is taking two trips in parallel: examining innovations that challenged our thinking in the past, and following new issues that continue to persist or are developing. This book isn’t a nostalgia piece, but a challenge to how you look at innovation with long-term impact.

The value of this book is to help people catch up on the common underlying issues of the Digital economy in the world today. Yet, a digital historian can also use this to examine how innovative ideas that span beyond single companies, industries or countries, evolve over time. It helps us understand maturity and the diffusion of innovation, even as we claim there is too much inertia in some fields for real change.