Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams

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Don Tapscott helped found the new economics associated with the Web with Digital Economy and Digital Capital. Wikinomics seeks the same goal using the features and functions of Web 2.0 as a basis for new forms of business collaboration and opportunity.

Tapscott takes numerous examples of next generation collaboration and social networks to point to the potential of the next generation of the web where customization, tailoring, self-publishing are viable business activities. The examples which range from assaying gold deposits to creating new rap albums are compelling. They lay the foundation for the principles of wikinomics that include:

BEING OPEN to allow customers, peers and others more access to your content, intellectual capital to collaborate and create something new.

PEERING to recognize that people form their own communities to create value, such as open source, and prefer these communities to traditional hierarchies that concentrate on control.

SHARING to overturn the economics of scarcity in favor of wide distribution and tailoring. In this regard, value comes not form distribution but from application of your products and services.

From these principles Tapscott discusses the following actors that will bring this world to the forefront of business:

1. Peer pioneers who will create the new business models based on wikinomics and found the companies that will displace both traditional companies and first generation web companies.

2. Ideagoras the creation of open forums where ideas are freely shared and developed based on attracting world class talent from around the connected world.

3. Prosumers who are a rising group of customers who will both produce and consume new products and services.

4. New Alexandrians the 'librarians' who will bring people together. In other words, the mavens that draw the Prosumers into the Ideagoras.

5. Platforms of Participation which is where the wiki economy will happen. These are places where companies open their products and platforms to enable collaboration and creation of next generation products and businesses.

6. Global Plant Floor recognizes that manufacturing has become more open and able to support mass customized products. This is essential for new products to get to market effectively.

7. Wiki Workplace the environment where people will collaborate in the future, connect and collaborate to create new sources of value.

If you have read down this far, you see both the strength and the challenges associated with this book.

Tapscott does a great job of illustrating the very real possibilities associated with the new social and collaborative capabilities provided by the web. These are real phenomenons that are currently cutting apart the music, media, financial services and just about every industry. Executives ignore these developments at their peril.

However, those possibilities are wrapped up in jargon to such an extent that they detract from the message. It is like Tapscott is trying to invent a new language for the sake of coining new terms. This is probably a manifestation of the very forces Tapscott writes about as in a `wiki' world you need to differentiate yourself, establish your brand and uniqueness. But he does so at the risk of alienating the reader who is in most need of the advice in the book. Effective communication still matters and the reason this is not a five star recommendation.

This book is good and perhaps one of the founding books for the next wave of Internet intensive business innovation. Time alone guarantees that many of the things Tapscott talks about will happen as new digital consumers gain incomes and responsibilities. The question is will you be able to go where the economy is heading, or be willing to accept the opportunity cost of staying where you are.
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