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Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything | 
 enlarge | Authors: Taps Don, Anthony D. Williams
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $14.25
You Save: $13.70 (49%)
New (48) Used (8) from $14.25
Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 1586
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Expanded
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 1591841933
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9781591841937
Publication Date: April 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
An updated edition of the national bestseller now with a new introduction and a new chapter
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 guide to 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 competitiveness in the twenty- first century.
Based on a $9 million research project led by bestselling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how 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, or even building motorcycles. You'll read about:
Rob McEwen, the Goldcorp, Inc. CEO who used open source tactics and an online competition to save his company and breathe new life into 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.
Mature companies like Procter & Gamble that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators to form vibrant business ecosystems.
An important look into the future, Wikinomics will be your road map for doing business in the twenty-first century.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 87 more reviews...
 Wikinomics: More Than Open Source Mumbo-Jumbo January 20, 2007
Manny Hernandez (Palo Alto, CA)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
In mid-2000, while I was still working for Quepasa.com, I wrote an article titled "The rules for the new economy: are they really new?" It was the period of "irrational exuberance" and business that made no business sense whatsoever could get money from investors like there was no tomorrow. So, the conclusion of the article was pretty much that the business rules at the time had not really changed.
In 2007, I find myself having finished the fascinating book Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams and I feel it can be said that the rules of the new economy are in the process of changing indeed.
It's hard to argue against the principles of wikinomics: being open, peering, sharing and acting globally. Or, otherwise put, opening doors to others, adopting standards and sharing information, so as to take advantage of the power of the networked world, as opposed to depending solely on internal resources. If this sounds all like idealist open source mumbo jumbo, consider Innocentive, a web-based platform that acts as a sort of eBay broker between scientists and companies in need of solving real world R&D problems, a true real-life initiative that embodies the principes laid out in the book.
I recommend Wikinomics to those who loved The World is Flat but felt that the book's political bias occasionally got in the way of the delivery of its message. Wikinomics focuses on the impact of recent technologies on the way business need to conduct themselves for the future, if they want to thrive.
Large look at the collaborative online world February 23, 2007
Rolf Dobelli (Luzern Switzerland)
38 out of 41 found this review helpful
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.
This Book is a Mind Stimulant January 8, 2007
Jill Konrath (St. Paul, MN United States)
11 out of 17 found this review helpful
Reading Wikinomics opened my mind to the tremendous possibilities that exist for organizations that capitalize on the mass collaboration capabilities available today. Tapscott showed multiple examples of how companies who shared their intellectual property & invited customers/peers to be co-innovators were able to:
- accelerate scientific discovery
- create new revenue streams
- reduce R&D costs
- deliver innovation faster
- lower transation costs
- tap into global source of experts
- increase efficiency
- and much more.
Not only that, this book was a real wake-up call. While I see my kids texting, IM-ing, and spending hours on [...] I never thought about the impact of these NetGen youth on our emerging workplace. If you're over 40, you need to read this book now or it'll be too late. According to the author, many traditional businesses won't survive unless they embrace these changes.
Wikinomics has challenged me to figure out how I can leverage this technology AND mindset for my own small business. I love it when a book gets me thinking!
Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies
Great Listen March 13, 2008
C. Horne
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an easy read or listen. Very enlightening to understanding the impact of small contributions by many members of a community.
Business in the 21st century November 28, 2007
Sahra Badou (Tokyo, Japan)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In this book, the authors argue that the internet will change businesses for the better. Unlike in the recent book I read, "The Cult of the Amateur", by Andrew Keen (see my review), that argues the negative impact of the internet, Tapscott and Williams praise the internet as a medium to faster progress through sharing and contribution. Similarly, Al Gore in "The Assault on Reason" praises the internet and argues against any laws imposing restrictions on it.
Just a few years ago, companies met in boardrooms to take crucial decisions on their future and to solve short and long-term problems. Nowadays, the boardroom is the internet, with thousands if not millions of people sharing and contributing their expertise and know-how. Companies no longer have to solely rely on their employees to solve problems. Posting their problems on the internet will get them a multitude of possible solutions. Smart firms harness this collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.
Encyclopedias, like Wikipedia; jetliners, like Boeing; operating systems, like Linux; mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. And most of these people contribute their know-how for free!
Many examples abound of companies who have benefited from the online community. Goldcorp used an online competition to find the location of gold in North Canada. They used open source tactics, and revealed their research and statistics online. Savvy online engineers were able to use that information to pinpoint with precise accuracy where gold could be found. It is not easy for a company to make public its proprietary research, but by doing so, they stand to benefit from the expertise of thousands of people.
Wikipedia is a good example of mass contribution. The online encyclopedia has now, according to some experts, surpassed the Encyclopedia Britannica. Anyone can contribute and correct information on Wikipedia. I recently read the really great book "Charlie Wilson's War" by George Crile. I wanted to find more information on Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, but there were no entries of him on my 2007 Encyclopedia Britannica DVD. However, on Wikipedia I found a lot of information on him, and even that a movie is being made about him. All contributors, who are people like you and me, contribute to Wikipedia for free. Whoever said that the Universe does not give a free lunch?
Amazon is another great example of peer contribution. Just surf to amazon.com (like you've just done now) and read reviews submitted by millions of people on any item, whether books, electronics, foods, software, jewelry etc. You'll be able to make a better decision on whether to buy an item. These reviews are submitted to Amazon by people like you and I for free. Amazon benefits from these reviews for most people end up buying the items reviewed from Amazon.
Amazon has also opened their API to the public, allowing programmers worldwide to tinker with their code. Many people have opened online stores as a result of Amazon's open source APIs. These stores get prices and details on all products listed on Amazon. As a result, anyone can now open an online store, get information on millions of products direct from Amazon, and sell any of these products. Amazon takes care of all financial transactions for you. All you have to do is ship the products to the buyers. Who would have thought just a few years ago business could be made so easy? All of this is of course possible because of the internet.
Flickr, Second Life, YouTube, and other online social networking communities also pioneered a new form of collaborative production. In Second Life, for example, you may have a virtual life similar to your day to day real life. In Second Life, you may own a house, go shopping, go to clubs and meet new people, and even invest in real estate using Linden currency. I read once in Businessweek that a British woman made over a million dollars investing in real estate in Second Life. Linden money can be converted into real currency!
The bottom line of this book is that sharing your company's inner workings with the online community is good for the health and progress of your company. The contribution by the online community to your company is what's going to keep it competitive in this fast moving technologically oriented society. The internet has now made it possible to harness the brain power of millions of people worldwide.
According to the authors, Wikinomics will be your road map for doing business in the twenty-first century. After all, the book is based on a $9 million research project.
I highly recommend the book. It will change the way you do business from now on. Indeed, there is power in numbers!
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