Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (Hardcover)

by Don Tapscott (Author), Anthony D. Williams (Author) "It was late in the afternoon, on a typically harsh Canadian winter day, as Rob McEwen, the CEO of Goldcorp Inc., stood at the head..." (more)
Key Phrases: prosumer communities, wiki workplace, mass collaboration, Best Buy, Geek Squad, Second Life (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Anyone who has done even a modest amount of browsing on the Internet has probably run across Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia that now dwarfs the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica. This is the prime example of what is called the new Web, or Web 2.0, where sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and even the Human Genome Project allow mass collaboration from participants in the online community. These open systems can produce faster and more powerful results than the traditional closed proprietary systems that have been the norm for private industry and educational institutions. Detractors claim that authentic voices are being overrun by "an anonymous tide of mass mediocrity," and private industry laments that competition from the free goods and services created by the masses compete with proprietary marketplace offerings. The most obvious example of this is Linux, the open-source operating system that has killed Microsoft in the server environment. But is this a bad thing? Tapscott thinks not; and as a proponent of peering, sharing, and open-source thinking, he has presented a clear and exciting preview of how peer innovation will change everything. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (December 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591841380
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841388
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (104 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #77,517 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

120 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Warning: contains large quantites of consultantese, January 14, 2007

By	Bradley Gessler (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Don Tapscott's book, Wikinomics, discussed many excellent and interesting high-level collaboration concepts but was somewhat of a disappointment because of Tapscott's "I invented the question mark" writing style. For example, Tapscott makes an attempt to label specialized networks, like Napster, as "Business Networks" and even proceeds to call them "b-webs":

"By 2000, when the music industry finally noticed it, the MP3 b-web had reached critical mass-tens of thousands of music files had become available for downloading over the Net-and Napster alone, record companies said, had cost them $300 million in lost sales."

You mean a "peer-to-peer music network?" As a management consultant by day, I even found myself rolling my eyes at some of Don's painful attempts to coin new jargon. I felt that Tapscott lost a lot of creditability by going down this path. The title alone, "Wikinomics", and the tagline, "How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything," should have given away that the consultantese was going to be thick.

Some sections of the book, like the "tagging" reference below, were just downright funny underlining that Tapscott doesn't have a very in-depth understanding of the technologies that are powering this collaboration phenomena. This suggests that Wikinomics was not edited by a broader audience:

"Tagging harnesses a technology called XML to allow users to affix descriptive labels or keyword to content (techies call it "metadata", or data about data). Wired cofounder Kevin Kelly aptly describes a tag as a public annotation-like a keyword or category name that you hang on a file, web page, or picture. When people tag content collaboratively, it creates a "folksonomy," essentially a bottom-up, organic taxonomy that organizes content on the web"

By definition, a tag does not harness XML. In fact, the two have nothing to do with each other. You could use XML to define a tag, but you could also use a database, file system metadata, or any other symbolic system to define a tag. Almost all web applications with tagging functionality store tagging data in a database system.

While this is a very small detail that Tapscott missed, this book is riddled with many of these small "misunderstandings" making me question the author's editorial process. Maybe if Tapscott had used a wiki to let others edit his transcript, a "techie" would have caught the error and corrected it ;)

Despite the nit-picky details, I would recommend the book to somebody who has never heard of a Wiki, blog, social network or of Web 2.0. It definitely gets the brain thinking about the exciting opportunities that lay ahead for both our professional and personal lives. Many interesting and innovative cases, including some new ways Proctor & Gamble is doing business outside of the traditional corporate hierarchy, are discussed in detail.

If you can stand the consultantese, have $25 laying around, and can find a couple hours to read, definitely pick up this book. If you don't have the time for the consultantese and want to understand what's really going on, pick up the Long Tail.

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42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Large look at the collaborative online world, February 23, 2007

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

76 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good discussion of the possibilities created by Web 2.0, December 28, 2006

By	M. McDonald (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Don Tapscott helped found the new economics associated with the Web with Digital Economy and Digital Capital. Wikinomics seeks the same goal using the features and functions of Web 2.0 as a basis for new forms of business collaboration and opportunity.

Tapscott takes numerous examples of next generation collaboration and social networks to point to the potential of the next generation of the web where customization, tailoring, self-publishing are viable business activities. The examples which range from assaying gold deposits to creating new rap albums are compelling. They lay the foundation for the principles of wikinomics that include:

BEING OPEN to allow customers, peers and others more access to your content, intellectual capital to collaborate and create something new.

PEERING to recognize that people form their own communities to create value, such as open source, and prefer these communities to traditional hierarchies that concentrate on control.

SHARING to overturn the economics of scarcity in favor of wide distribution and tailoring. In this regard, value comes not form distribution but from application of your products and services.

From these principles Tapscott discusses the following actors that will bring this world to the forefront of business:

1. Peer pioneers who will create the new business models based on wikinomics and found the companies that will displace both traditional companies and first generation web companies.

2. Ideagoras the creation of open forums where ideas are freely shared and developed based on attracting world class talent from around the connected world.

3. Prosumers who are a rising group of customers who will both produce and consume new products and services.

4. New Alexandrians the 'librarians' who will bring people together. In other words, the mavens that draw the Prosumers into the Ideagoras.

5. Platforms of Participation which is where the wiki economy will happen. These are places where companies open their products and platforms to enable collaboration and creation of next generation products and businesses.

6. Global Plant Floor recognizes that manufacturing has become more open and able to support mass customized products. This is essential for new products to get to market effectively.

7. Wiki Workplace the environment where people will collaborate in the future, connect and collaborate to create new sources of value.

If you have read down this far, you see both the strength and the challenges associated with this book.

Tapscott does a great job of illustrating the very real possibilities associated with the new social and collaborative capabilities provided by the web. These are real phenomenons that are currently cutting apart the music, media, financial services and just about every industry. Executives ignore these developments at their peril.

However, those possibilities are wrapped up in jargon to such an extent that they detract from the message. It is like Tapscott is trying to invent a new language for the sake of coining new terms. This is probably a manifestation of the very forces Tapscott writes about as in a `wiki' world you need to differentiate yourself, establish your brand and uniqueness. But he does so at the risk of alienating the reader who is in most need of the advice in the book. Effective communication still matters and the reason this is not a five star recommendation.

This book is good and perhaps one of the founding books for the next wave of Internet intensive business innovation. Time alone guarantees that many of the things Tapscott talks about will happen as new digital consumers gain incomes and responsibilities. The question is will you be able to go where the economy is heading, or be willing to accept the opportunity cost of staying where you are.