We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production: The Power of Mass Creativity [Paperback]

'Likely to be the most controversial book about the Internet to be published in Britain this year... A highly readable British synthesis of James Surowiecki's Wisdom of the Crowds and Chris Anderson's Long Tail, Leadbeater's We-Think is definitely an important book, even for skeptics like me who are suspicious of the seductive techno-utopian promises of the Web 2.0 revolution.' Andrew Keen, Independent'this is a highly accessible and stimulating introduction to a set of trends that are still very much in their early stages. We should all be thinking a lot harder about where they will lead.' www.charliebeckett.org

`Likely to be the most controversial book about the Internet to be published in Britain this year.... A highly readable British synthesis of James Surowiecki's Wisdom of the Crowds and Chris Anderson's Long Tail, Leadbeater's We-Think is definitely an important book, even for skeptics like me who are suspicious of the seductive techno-utopian promises of the Web 2.0 revolution.'

The man The Spectator calls 'the new wizard of the web' explores the ways in which mass collaboration is dramatically reshaping our approach to work, play and communication. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

We-think is about what the rise of these phenomena (not all to do with the internet) means for the way we organise ourselves - not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations. For the point of the industrial era economy was mass production for mass consumption, the formula created by Henry Ford; but these new forms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrival of a new kind of society, in which people want to be players, not spectators. This is a huge cultural shift, for in this new economy people want not services and goods, delivered to them, but tools so they can take part. In We-think Charles Leadbeater analyses not only these changes, but how they will affect us and how we can make the most of them. Just as, in the 1980s, his In Search of Work predicted the rise of more flexible employment, here he outlines a crucial shift that is already affecting all of us.

'A riveting guide to a new world ... The seer has spoken' Spectator You are what you share. That is the ethic of the world being created by YouTube and MySpace, Wikipedia and Facebook. We-Think is a rallying call for the shared power of the web to make society more open and egalitarian. We-Think reports on an unparalleled wave of collaborative creativity as people from California to China devise ways to work together that are more democratic, productive and creative. This guide to the new culture of mass participation and innovation is a book like no other: it started first online through a unique experiment in collaborative creativity involving hundreds of people across the globe. The generation growing up with the web will not be content to remain spectators. They want to be players and this is their slogan: we think therefore we are. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Charles Leadbeater is one the world's leading authorities on innovation and creativity in organisations. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world, from the BBC and RSC to Vodafone and Microsoft, has won the prestigious David Watt prize for journalism and in 2005 was ranked by Accenture as one of the top management thinkers in the world. His previous books include Living on Thin Air and Up the Down Escalator. Time magazine highlighted his work in its 2006 review of ideas that could shape the coming decade.