Wikinomics

Book: Wikinomics. Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams. Penguin, 2007

URL = http://www.wikinomics.com/

Review at http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/03/1511214

Description

"WIKINOMICS explains how winning companies innovate and succeed in the emerging Age of Collaboration.

The knowledge, resources, and computing power of billions of people are self-organizing into a massive collective force. Interconnected and orchestrated through blogs, Wikis, chat rooms, peer-to-peer networks, and personal broadcasting, the Web is being reinvented to provide the first global platform for collaboration. Millions of people -- consumers, employees, suppliers, business partners, and even competitors -- now harness technology to innovate and collaborate like never before.

In the world of WIKINOMICS, the choices for collaboration are endless. You can build your own business on Amazon; produce a television news clip for Current TV; create a community around your photo collection on Flickr; or edit the astronomy entry on Wikipedia. You can plug into InnoCentive and join Procter and Gamble's virtual R&D department; remix the Nine Inch Nails rock album; or co-design the interactive features for your next BMW.

This new Web links over a billion people directly, and (unlike Web 1.0) it now reaches out to the physical world, connecting trillions of objects from hotel doors to cars. It is beginning to deliver dynamic new services - from free long distance video-telephony to remote brain surgery.

With vivid and engaging examples, WIKINOMICS explains the deep changes in technology, demographics, and business that will allow people to participate in the economy like never before. This new participation - "peer production" - is changing how goods and services are invented, produced, marketed, and distributed on a global basis. It presents far-reaching opportunities for every company and, most of all, for you." (http://www.wikinomics.com/)

Authors

Don Tapscott, one of the world's leading authorities on business strategy, is Chief Executive of international think tank New Paradigm, which focuses on new business designs in performance, effectiveness and competitiveness. Tapscott is the author of ten widely read books about information technology in business and society, including Paradigm Shift, Growing Up Digital and The Naked Corporation. He is also adjunct professor of management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Anthony D. Williams is a Research Director at New Paradigm and the author of numerous influential reports, most recently for a $5 million multi-client investigation on IT and competitive advantage. He teaches at the London School of Economics." (http://www.wikinomics.com/)