Wikinomics

Society is entering an age where new forms of mass collaboration are changing how goods and services are invented, produced, marketed, and distributed on a global basis. This change presents far-reaching opportunities for every company and person who gets connected. In Wikinomics, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams provide readers with the key principles of mass collaboration, define the seven primary mass collaboration models, and explain how businesses can harness the power of this emerging trend. Millions of people across every sector of the economy are joining forces in self-organized collaborations that produce dynamic new goods and services. Underlying this work is an emerging art and science of collaboration called wikinomics. The authors assert that wikinomics is based on four powerful new ideas: openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally. These new principles will replace some of the old tenets of business. Being open. Today, firms that make their boundaries porous to external ideas and human capital outperform competitors that rely solely on internal resources and capabilities. Transparency is a growing force in the networked economy. Peering. A new form of horizontal organization is developing that rivals the hierarchical firm in its capacity to create information-based products and services. This form is known as peering. Sharing. Increasingly, firms find that maintaining and defending a proprietary system of intellectual property often cripples their ability to create value. Contributing to the commons is often the best way to build vibrant business ecosystems that harness a shared foundation of technology and knowledge to accelerate growth and innovation. Acting Globally. The ongoing trend towards globalization is causing and is caused by changes in collaboration. In a global business environment, winning companies need to understand the world, as well as its markets, technologies and people. Underpinning wikinomics are seven models of mass collaboration: peer production, ideagoras, prosumers, New Alexandrians, platforms, the global plant floor, and wikinomics in the workplace. Peer production applies open source principles to create information-based products, ranging from operating systems to encyclopedias. Ideagoras give companies access to a global marketplace of ideas and innovations that they can use to extend their problem-solving capacity. Just as the Internet moved to Web 2.0, Tapscott and Williams suggest that companies need to evolve to Enterprise 2.0. Enterprise 2.0 is a new kind of business entity - one that opens its doors to the world; coinnovates with everyone, especially customers; shares resources that were previously closely guarded; harnesses the power of mass collaboration; and behaves not as a multinational but as a truly global firm. For the business manager, the authors' number one lesson is that the monolithic, self-contained, and inwardly-focused corporation is dead. Winning companies compete by reaching outside their walls to harness external knowledge, resources, and capabilities. They focus their internal staff on value integration and orchestration, and treat the world as their R&D department. Wikinomics is intended for any reader who wants to better understand the new collaboration-based business models that will displace traditional corporate structures.