Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything This instant

There's a power shift underway that's calling into question all our fundamental beliefs about how the world works. Don Tapscott's and Anthony D. Williams' penetrating insights in "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything" are a timely orientation to the new world of mass collaboration where peer-to-peer communities consistently outpace hierarchical bureaucracies. These collaborative communities, leveraging the powerful new technologies of the Internet, are routinely accomplishing previously unthinkable results by discarding all the accepted ways for how large numbers of people get things done.

Tapscott and Williams make a strong case for the proposition that we have entered a new age with new rules where the nature of the game has completely changed. The participation revolution unleashed by the Web is creating a new world where, for the first time in history, large numbers of people can now work together without having to go through a central organization. More importantly, these new forms of self-organization produce smarter, faster, and less costly results than their hierarchical counterparts. That's why, according to the authors, it's just a matter of time before these agile new ways of organizing eventually displace the plodding habits of traditional corporate structures.

The new economics of this new world of mass collaboration, which Tapscott and Williams dub "wikinomics," are based on four fundamental principles: openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally. Companies, such as IBM, are discovering that, by breaking down their boundaries and being open to external ideas, they are outperforming counterparts who rely solely on their internal resources. Linux is leading the way in inventing new forms of peer-to-peer organization that belie our notions for how to build software. Biotechnology firms are redefining the economics of intellectual property by sharing their discoveries to mutually leverage their collective knowledge. And the Internet is transforming markets into global villages where people and assets will need to be managed across traditional cultural and organizational boundaries.

The level of agility, creativity, and connectivity made possible by the new economics of our new age will raise the competitive bar for all industries. Consequently, Tapscott and Williams warn that the organizational values, processes, and architectures of the command-and-control economy are not simply outdated; they are handicaps on the value creation process of our fast-arriving future. If you want to be prepared for this future, "Wikinomics" is a good place to start.Get more detail about Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.