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| Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything | 
 enlarge | Authors: Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $7.30
You Save: $20.65 (74%)
New (55) Used (12) Collectible (1) from $7.30
Avg. Customer Rating:  93 reviews
Sales Rank: 10555
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Expanded
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 1591841933
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9781591841937
ASIN: 1591841933
Publication Date: April 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Book and dust cover fine condition. Remainder mark at edge
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| Customer Reviews:
Beam us up, Tapscott January 25, 2007
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Don Tapscott and his collaborators rang my bell with Wikinomics. Admittedly, they lost me when they delved too deeply into the technical aspects and jargon of this new gig on the electronic block but, as reviewer Jill Korath said, "I love it when a book gets me thinking."
And, I thought..."How could wikinomics be applied to help resolve such deep-seated and pervasive problems as, say, corruption in local governments and communities--but on a global basis?" Incidentally, this example didn't just flash across my brain. Some Romanian friends and I have been struggling with this conundrum for the past two years. And, just as we thought we had a handle on how to do it, we got wiki-whacked by Tapscott and his gang of mind-bogglers.
The underlying principles and strategies of wikinomics (openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally) are already used to deal with major socio-economic challenges like HIV-AIDS, grinding poverty, and yes, even corruption. But, I sense there is an enormous gap between what Tapscott and gang think is possible through the use of wikinomics and what is currently happening to solve some of the world's most intractable problems. While wikinomics seems to work best when driven by profit motives and the unveiling of new techno-gadgets, those of us in the trenches, who think noble thoughts and act incrementally, need to be beamed up and turned loose by the magic of wikinomics. Help!
 It's an "Open" world now... January 29, 2007
9 out of 15 found this review helpful
I produce events for a living, lots of smoke and mirrors, song and dance all to help the top executives look better on stage. Take what Don Tapscott is saying regarding the "historic" shift in Corporate America and realize it is going to have profound effects on all walks of life. Fostering the power of everyone will always be more usefull than the old school didactic rule that a small few should "tell" us what to do...if you run a company, buy this book!
 WikiMAGIC March 8, 2007
9 out of 20 found this review helpful
All things Web 2.0
Reminds one of the dot-com boom Tapscot also leveraged to sell futuristic books. Collaboration is far more than Wikis, Mashups, Social nets and all things Web 2.0. To learn more check out HUMAN INTERACTIONS by Keith Harrison Broniski or visit humanedj[dot]com.
Helpful Summary of Early On-Line Mass Collaborations April 6, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
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.
The fun side of social networking July 23, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
If you have never contributed to a wiki, this book may excite you enough to take the plunge. If you have been living under a rock, and haven't noticed that something called 'wikipedia' has put door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen out of business, the book will be a revelation and demands all 300+ pages. If you are anxious about the US economy, the book may be calming since 'the people' are being energized by wikinomics.
I wish that the text had provided a structured analysis of the 'wiki' phenomena. Instead, each chapter covers a different industry's use of Web 2.0 functionality. Each chapter provides an example of an exceptional company exceeding the industry norm by relying on Internet data sharing, social networking, shared editing, etc. By the end of the book, the examples start getting repetitive, but no attempt is made to provide some order. Early in the book, the author claims the Internet is reducing the 'cost of collaboration', and this is changing everything. That's a good point, but there is little rational exploration of the various implications 'low cost collaboration' might imply.
For example, what will the 'criminal' element do with the wiki revolution? Is it a good thing that criminals can use Internet tools to evolve faster than law enforcement agencies?
Anyone who uses the Internet for long knows about phishing, malware, viruses and identity theft, so it puzzles me that the dark side gets no time in this book.
Another controversial aspect of the 'wiki' movement is copyright law. Some say that 'wikipedia' is simply a rip-off of traditional encyclopedias and print materials. From this perspective, the Wikipedia is simply a summary of various printed materials, and the authors of these source materials never get paid for the benefit they provide. This is a minority view, but it deserves consideration. (From what I hear, the cost of academic print journals is skyrocketing)
For a somewhat darker view of what 'social networks' can bring to the table, see John Robb's 'Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization'. What Mr. Tapscott calls 'wikinomics', Mr. Robb called '4th generation warefare.' Both agree that the technology favors the young and talented who wish to by pass limitations society might wish to apply. Mr Robb doesn't see why spectacular violence can't be an integral part of social networking, though.
The book Freakonomics provides a similar, but more balanced, view of technology's impact.
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