Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything

California State University Los Angeles

EDIT 490

June 2008

From the two opening chapters of the book, Tapscott and Williams (2008) expound the virtues of new collaborative networks that open the ether to all and anyone wishing to contribute to the common knowledge. Exuding with self-praise at their personal epiphanies and expounding the new forms of collaboration and collectivism, they declare that a new economic democracy is emerging in which we all have a lead role. To illustrate this they offer thumb-nail sketches of large corporations such as Goldcorp Inc. and Proctor and Gamble Inc. as harnessing the munificence of the masses by inviting everyone to contribute their intelligence to solving challenging issues. The authors seem pleased to announce that we no longer have to be on Proctor & Gamble’s payroll to work for them: An opportunity indeed? Anyone harbouring reservations about the unrestricted nature or quality of the contents of these networks is condemned as a fuddy-duddy or, worse still, over 45 years old. The following 11 chapters present not so much a balanced argument surrounding the development of innovative communication applications as a polemic for their ubiquitous introduction. It is a readable book with a homely tone but the lack of source clarity in the “Notes” section (pp.321-340) where for example, some statements have been attributed to writers without mention of the publication, further detracts from its gravitas as scholarly text.

If the lack of balanced argument can be ignored there is some interesting content such as the premise mooted in chapter 6. Here, the authors invoke the gods of ancient Greece to show us how, in a short time, all the publications and communications of the universe will be available to every one of us across the Internet in what they term the Alexandrian revolution. Universal access will they are sure, achieve such things as the improvement of human health, turn the tide on environmental damage, advance human culture and explore outer space through peer-to-peer communications. Facilitating this is innovation in new web architectures and applications that mean it is now easy to collaborate; companies need not be of equal size or importance; they may be in different countries or time zones, and the collaboration may even be across different industry sectors. For those of us in business or education, the most exciting advance in Wikinomics is the ease with which these collaborations can be achieved. This chapter points to the benefits that can accrue from university-industry partnerships when teams of researchers can get together in open web-based discussion, then choose the partners with whom they wish to collaborate. Teams that in the past would have taken months or years to bring together can be built almost instantaneously. Furthermore, these extended networks of partnerships can be built and dissembled and rebuilt to suit the needs of the project and the success and productivity of the relationships. This is the democracy that many of us in the field of education would like to see more vigorously developed.

One further very valuable point is made in chapter 6 regarding the relatively recent extension of scientific patents or “property rights” (p. 179) to new post-human genome discoveries and the contribution that web communications can make in redressing the situation. Recent years have seen the erosion of the rights of scientists to exchange data and information on projects even if it is for the public good. Because of the power of, for example, the large pharmaceutical companies and their self-serving secrecy, it is almost impossible for individuals to challenge these laws but the anonymity of the Internet and the speed at which it can disseminate information could provide a solution. The authors are not anti commerce and understand the contribution that a healthy balance between private enterprise and public foundation makes to society. Their point is well made however, that new web based technologies have the ability to act as vehicles for the sharing of information in support of the ethical standards. Technology can therefore help to maintain an information-access balance in academia as well as commercial enterprise. #

In summary, many of the ideas showcased by the authors have been in circulation for decades (e.g. chapters 8 and 9), and are well understood by people in business and education. To that extent the book introduces little new and it is therefore pretentious in many of the claims of its dust cover reviewers. It does not push the envelope, but it does add value for the reader who has kept up with new multi-media trends in that it reminds us that wiki success depends on the best aspects of human nature, our capacity to trust and to share.


Reference
Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2008). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything (expanded ed.). New York, NY: Penguin Group