• By Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams
• Atlantic Books
• RRP $39.99
When, five years ago, Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams penned their earlier book Wikinomics they were arguing that open-sourcing and mass collaboration would transform the way businesses design, manufacture and market their products and services.
Now, in this latest volume, they’ve throttled ahead to apply their ideas of networked intelligence to everything from government, education and science to energy production, the media and healthcare.
As they see it, many of our ‘crumbling institutions’ in these fields are straining at the seams as their hierarchical, command-and-control management systems fail to provide fast, efficient and meaningful service to large numbers of people.
Why, for instance, do research papers languish unread when they could be openly shared, and learnt from, in free forums? Why does our healthcare system condemn people to suffer in isolated ignorance when they could better marshall their collective resources through sharing their ideas and experiences?
Tapscott and Williams believe we are on the cusp of adopting more effective, less proprietorial, models of collaboration in many more aspects of our lives. This, in turn, raises concerns over the ownership and reliability of information, continuing momentum, funding, sustaining levels of interest and accountability.
If collaboration, openness, sharing and interdependence are your thing, this is book for you. If they’re not, this book will unsettle your world. Either way: read it.
