Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Large look at the collaborative online world, 23 Feb 2007
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.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Wikinomics - how mass collaboration changes everything, 27 May 2007
one to read quickly, a chapter at a time, like Digital Economy an excellent review of where technology is at, and where it is taking us. Focussed on the impact of Web 2.0 type innovations like wiki, and user input, it argues for a new way of working that is collaborative and ideas driven. Written to the standard of a good Wired or Economist article, well researched and well written. For many people, they are increasingly becoming a modular unit, in a flexible workforce, that uses their ideas and input, their problem solving, but often fails to recognise and reward the contributions that are hard to measure. This is a work environment that requires different behaviours, flexibility and innovation, but self sufficiency too. If the West is to remain more successful than competitors, it needs to be smarter than traditional hierarchical structures.
On the debit side, it has been printed on pretty shabby paper, and it has a couple of typos. Although insightful and thoughtful, I'm not sure that it contributes anything terribly new, that most readers would not have more or less figured out themselves. It also fails to clarify where new approaches are likely to work, and where they are unlikely to work. A more technologically empowered and ideas orientated organisation is essential in some sectors, less so in others. A better understanding of the variables, would make for a more rounded understanding. Cheap computing, and connectivity makes it possible. From a personal point of view, I would be intrigued to see how these approaches could be incorporated into government.
Random Quote
"The bottom line is this: The immutable, standalone Web site is dead. Say hello to the Web that increasingly looks like a library full of chatty components that interact and talk to one another. Increasingly, poeple are engineering software, databases, and Web sites so that they not only meet private objectives, but so that they can be used in ways the originators did not know or intend. this makes it very easy to build new Web services out of these exisitng components by mashing them together in fresh combinations."
p38
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Helpful Summary of Early On-Line Mass Collaborations, 6 April 2007
Think of this book more as reporting of where the world was in 2005 than analysis and direction for the future. But Wikinomics is a helpful resource to have, for most people are unaware of the extent to which self-organization through mass communication is being developed. Some of the successes are spectacular like the Goldcorp contest to locate more gold (which I described in The Ultimate Competitive Advantage in 2003) and Procter & Gamble's astonishing efforts to acquire technology from outside the organization (which I describe in The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution).
The strength of the book is that several different aspects of on-line mass collaborations are developed including:
1. Open collaborations to produce collective results not owned by anyone including Wikipedia and Linux.
2. Accessing more expert knowledge through idea markets (such as Goldcorp and P&G have done).
3. Customers being able to participate in detailed customization past what the vendor facilitates (basically a blurring of company-customer boundaries).
4. Knowledge transfer among the scientific community.
5. Methods of opening access to partners, especially for complementary software development.
6. Global production methods.
7. New ways of facilitating work in combination with those outside the organization.
If you are like me, you'll learn about some examples that you didn't before and find yourself feeling better informed.
The book has two annoying qualities that you should be aware of. First, the authors are very generous with each other in giving credit for ideas generated in the nondigital world by others. Second, there is a gushiness about the potential that isn't nuanced enough to reflect the problems that need to be solved. As a result, the inexperienced reader will get a sense that each opportunity is equally easy to grasp. That's clearly not true. In addition, the psychology of where which approaches will and won't work are mostly alluded to rather than developed. Building mass collaboration around enlightened self-interest is quite different from doing so built around more purely altruistic purposes.
I suspect the book would have worked better if the authors had written a series of books that developed each perspective further. Certainly, the global contest concept for for-profit enterprises is a proven area that almost anyone can do. That topic deserved more emphasis and explanation. Instead, you get a newspaper-level discussion of the topic.
I have not read a better book on this subject (but there may well be one I've missed) and I suspect Wikinomics will be one of the standards in on-line mass collaborations.
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