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Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (Hardcover)
by Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams
| Category:
Global collaboration, Globalization, Outsourcing, Nonfiction |
| Market price: ¥ 288.00
MSL price:
¥ 268.00
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Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
This book introduces the building blocks and core models of the next generation knowledge work economy and is recommended for all strategic thinkers. |
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Author: Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; Expanded edition
Pub. in: April, 2008
ISBN: 1591841933
Pages: 368
Measurements: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA01033
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-1591841937
Language: American English
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- Awards & Credential -
Finalist for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. #1 in Internet category on Amazon.com as of October 27, 2007. |
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- MSL Picks -
Think of this book more as reporting of where the world was in 2005 than analysis and direction for the future. But Wikinomics is a helpful resource to have, for most people are unaware of the extent to which self-organization through mass communication is being developed. Some of the successes are spectacular like the Goldcorp contest to locate more gold (which I described in The Ultimate Competitive Advantage in 2003) and Procter & Gamble's astonishing efforts to acquire technology from outside the organization (which I describe in The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution).
The strength of the book is that several different aspects of on-line mass collaborations are developed including:
1. Open collaborations to produce collective results not owned by anyone including Wikipedia and Linux.
2. Accessing more expert knowledge through idea markets (such as Goldcorp and P&G have done).
3. Customers being able to participate in detailed customization past what the vendor facilitates (basically a blurring of company-customer boundaries).
4. Knowledge transfer among the scientific community.
5. Methods of opening access to partners, especially for complementary software development.
6. Global production methods.
7. New ways of facilitating work in combination with those outside the organization.
If you are like me, you'll learn about some examples that you didn't before and find yourself feeling better informed.
The book has two annoying qualities that you should be aware of. First, the authors are very generous with each other in giving credit for ideas generated in the nondigital world by others. Second, there is a gushiness about the potential that isn't nuanced enough to reflect the problems that need to be solved. As a result, the inexperienced reader will get a sense that each opportunity is equally easy to grasp. That's clearly not true. In addition, the psychology of where which approaches will and won't work are mostly alluded to rather than developed. Building mass collaboration around enlightened self-interest is quite different from doing so built around more purely altruistic purposes.
I suspect the book would have worked better if the authors had written a series of books that developed each perspective further. Certainly, the global contest concept for for-profit enterprises is a proven area that almost anyone can do. That topic deserved more emphasis and explanation. Instead, you get a newspaper-level discussion of the topic.
I have not read a better book on this subject (but there may well be one I've missed) and I suspect Wikinomics will be one of the standards in on-line mass collaborations.
(From quoting Donald Mitchell, USA)
Target readers:
Executives, managers, entrepreneurs, strategic planners, government and nonprofit leaders, academics, management consultants and MBAs.
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Don Tapscott is chief executive of New Paradigm, a think tank and strategy consulting company he founded in 1992. He is the author of ten books, including the bestsellers Paradigm Shift, The Digital Economy, Growing Up Digital, The Naked Corporation and Digital Capital. He teaches at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Anthony D. Williams is a research director at New Paradigm. He holds a master’s of research from the London School of Economics where he has been teaching over the last year. He leads New Paradigm’s work in the areas of innovation and intellectual property.
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From Publisher
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.
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| View all 12 comments |
Rolf Dobelli (MSL quote), Switzerland
<2007-10-27 00:00>
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams have written an intriguing, necessary and, in some ways, groundbreaking book, which we recommend to everyone...with some caveats. The authors examine the possibilities of mass collaboration, open-source software and evolutionary business practices. They integrate examples from the arts ("mashups"), scholarship (Wikipedia) and even heavy industry (gold mining) to argue that new forces are reshaping human societies. Some of their examples will be familiar, but others will surprise and educate you. However, the authors are so deeply part of the world they discuss that they may inflate it at times - for instance, making the actions of a few enthusiasts sound as if they already have transformed the Internet - and they sometimes fail to provide definitions or supporting data. Is the "blogosphere," for example, really making members of the younger generation into more critical thinkers? Tapscott and Williams repeatedly dismiss criticisms of their claims or positions without answering them. The result is that the book reads at times like a guidebook, at times like a manifesto and at times like a cheerleading effort for the world the authors desire. It reads, in short, like the Wikipedia they so admire: a valuable, exciting experiment that still contains a few flaws. |
David Brett (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-27 00:00>
Don Tapscott has done it again. He has beheld what we see happening all around us on the Internet and made sense of it from a business perspective. And he's again displayed his rare ability to distill a huge concept into a single word. (Buzzwords are with us for a reason: we need them as shorthand for new and complex ideas.)
Wikinomics is mainly about innovation and how web-based collaboration is driving it. Also, the book speaks to organizational dynamics and how the web is eating away at traditional hierarchies. This book should be a warning to companies that still think instant messaging is a nuisance and a threat to security. That's wrongheaded, according to the authors.
As the founder of the world's first eBay for knowledge, Knexa, I have a keen interest in what Tapscott calls "idea agoras," web-based exchange systems that facilitate the transfer of knowledge and/or intellectual property for financial consideration. Although such business models have been around for several years (Knexa launched in 1999), the space is still in its infancy and will continue to evolve.
Also, as an executive in the mining industry, I was pleased to see the example of Gold Corp used as an example of cutting edge innovation through web-based collaboration. Mining is typically seen as a knowledge economy Neanderthal, the quintessential "old economy" industry. But people in the business know better. It's extremely knowledge centric.
But when it comes to sharing knowledge to gain competitive advantage, the mining business is no different than the rest of the business world, where most would rather take their IP to the grave than "collaborate" with a competitor. But as Wikinomics points out, some companies are realizing that there's opportunity where others fear to tread.
Brief story. A few years ago when Knexa had offices in Vancouver's trendy Yaletown area, we shared about 10,000 square feet of cool brick and beam space with a bunch of other startups. One little company down the hall was named Ludicorp. They were not into suits and always seemed to work into the wee hours. One day I asked one of the fellows what they do. He said they had a web site called Flickr. They were shortly thereafter bought by Yahoo and are one of the sites reviewed in Wikinomics. |
Publishers Weekly (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-27 00:00>
The word "wiki" means "quick" in Hawaiian, and here author and think tank CEO Tapscott (The Naked Corporation), along with research director Williams, paint in vibrant colors the quickly changing world of Internet togetherness, also known as mass or global collaboration, and what those changes mean for business and technology. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia written, compiled, edited and re-edited by "ordinary people" is the most ubiquitous example, and its history makes remarkable reading. But also considered are lesser-known success stories of global collaboration that star Procter & Gamble, BMW, Lego and a host of software and niche companies. Problems arise when the authors indulge an outsized sense of scope-"this may be the birth of a new era, perhaps even a golden one, on par with the Italian renaissance, or the rise of Athenian democracy"-while acknowledging only reluctantly the caveats of weighty sources like Microsoft's Bill Gates. Methods for exploiting the power of collaborative production are outlined throughout, an alluring compendium of ways to throw open previously guarded intellectual property and to invite in previously unavailable ideas that hide within the populace at large. This clear and meticulously researched primer gives business leaders big leg up on mass collaboration possibilities; as such, it makes a fine next-step companion piece to James Surowiecki's 2004 bestseller The Wisdom of Crowds. |
A. G. Lafley, CEO, Procter & Gamble (MSL quote), USA
<2007-10-27 00:00>
No company today, no matter how large or how global, can innovate fast enough or big enough by itself. Wikinomics reveals the next historic step - the art and science of mass collaboration where companies open up to the world. It is an important book. |
View all 12 comments |
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