wikinomics review
September 27th, 2007 jasonkThis is slightly off-topic for typical blog articles, but I am convinced that this is the future of the software industry.
Strategy consultants Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams have released a timely book that attempts to reveal the structure of explosive growth sites and organisations like Wikipedia, eBay and Myspace. The book - Wikinomics - is a book about the explosion of mass collaboration, and just how you can borrow and leverage these business models from within your own business.
Five years ago, the notion that there would be a totally free encyclopedia rivalling Britannica, or that real world TV shows would be screening segments captured by lone individuals on mobile phones, was a blue sky dream. What is far less publicised is that smart businesses around the world are bridging the gap and tapping into huge communities and providing rapid innovations for their customers and increasing shareholder returns.
The book opens with an introduction to the topic of mass collaboration and provides a brief summary of the four principles which are drawn on throughout the book:
- Being open
- Peering
- Sharing
- Acting Globally
Some of the technological advances over the past decade that have contributed to the possibility of mass online collaboration are covered. From here, we springboard into the deeper content in the remainder of the book. This is not a detailed book on how to implement mass collaboration within specific businesses; the authors have chosen to make the content accessible and practical (which is what makes the book so useful). I won’t delve too far into the deeper content in the book; if I haven’t already got you interested, believe me there is a good deal of very valuable information.
Through the later chapters in the book the authors draw on a huge range of examples. For instance, we learn about how IBM have put paid developers into developing and giving away Linux (a freely downloadable open source operating system), and saved themselves $900 million per annum in the process. We learn about how Goldcorp Inc decided to reveal their secret mining data portfolio to all comers, and in the process transformed themselves from a “$100 million company into a $9 billion juggernaut”.
If you’re like me, those sort of results are definitely something to look at more deeply. How do they do this? Wikinomics does in fact cover the strategies involved in each of these investments (along with a huge variety of others), and how this non-conventional thinking can be applied to your own organisation. The authors take care to also show a number of pitfalls and examples. Not only does the analysis of a number of real world examples throughout each chapter help to demonstrate how you can apply this thinking, each chapter closes with a number of more specific tips on just how to take the first steps to applying the strategies presented within a business context.
This is a must-read for anyone in business or who intends to run a business. Wikinomics has certainly opened my eyes to the future; I no longer look at business problems as “how can I”, but “how can I get others to” …