Tapscott & Williams -Wikinomics - How mass collaboration changes everything

In the last few years, traditional collaboration—in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention center—has been superceded by collaborations on an astronomical scale.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 primer on 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 the key forces driving competitiveness in the twenty-first century.

Based on a $9 million research project led by bestselling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how the 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, and even building motorcycles.

Examples referred to in the book:

• Rob McEwen, the Goldcorp, Inc. CEO, former investment banker, and gold mining newbie, who used open source tactics and an online competition to breathe new life into a struggling business cobbled by the rules of 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 that will revolutionize markets and firms.
• Smart, multibillion dollar companies like Procter & Gamble that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators to form vibrant business ecosystems that create value more effectively than hierarchically organized businesses.

Wikinomics is a term that describes the effects of extensive collaboration and user-participation on the marketplace and corporate world. Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams popularized the term in their book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything , published in December 2006. The word itself is constructed from wiki (a server program that allows users to collaborate on a Web site) and economics.
According to Tapscott and Williams, these four principles are the central concepts of wikinomics in the enterprise:

• Openness, which includes not only open standards and content but also financial transparency and an open attitude towards external ideas and resources
• Peering, which replaces hierarchical models with a more collaborative forum. Tapscott and Williams cite the development of Linux as the "quintessential example of peering."
• Sharing, which is a less proprietary approach to (among other things) products, intellectual property, bandwidth, scientific knowledge
• Acting globally, which involves embracing globalization and ignoring "physical and geographical boundaries" at both the corporate and individual level.

Although wikinomics is, essentially, a Web 2.0 phenomenon, the authors insist that wikinomics' reach extends beyond to the broader culture: "This is more than open source , social networking , so-called crowdsourcing , smart mobs, crowd wisdom, or other ideas that touch upon the subject. Rather we are talking about deep change in the structure and modus operandi of the corporation and our economy, based on new competitive principles such as openness, peering, sharing and acting globally."
The last chapter of Wikinomics contains just 15 words: "Join us in peer producing the definitive guide to the twenty-first-century corporation on www.wikinomics.com." Tapscott and Williams have established a wiki where readers can write and edit the content of their book's last chapter.

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Described by BBC as:
Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams looks at how companies are beginning to use mass collaboration of knowledge to gain success.
Citing many examples of successful and surprising projects, the authors explain how big businesses could harness external expertise by engaging directly with and rewarding participation from their customers, users and a wide pool of informed contributors - a method is epitomised by the online encyclopaedia 'Wikipedia', where entries are written and edited by users. 'Crowdsourcing' rather than 'outsourcing' as they put it.


Creating by collaborating, e.g. Wikipedia, the prosumers creating materials, places they may do so are called Ideagoras, a place of sharing. How the creation of a product has changed, it does not have to be in a physical space, it can be over the internet, through discussion, from the participation of more people.
Other examples of how businesses do this...
Examples of businesses: Love Film, iTunes, HMV, Facebook, YouTube, Second Life