Already an Economist and Financial Times book of the year, Wikinomics has just been reissued in paperback in a fully revised and updated edition. If you are looking for a book that explains how and why mass collaboration changes the business rulebook, this is a very good place to start. The authors, Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams, perform that neat trick of tackling complex technological and social issues in an enjoyable and compelling way.

The central theme of the book is the need for organisations to harness the internet to engage with consumers, employees, suppliers and even competitors. Basing their arguments on the findings of an extensive $9m research programme, the authors strongly advise businesses to embrace the possibilities that the internet presents to “cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators and form vibrant business ecosystems that create value more effectively than hierarchically organised businesses”.

The authors introduce this edition by having a small laugh at their own expense, saying of the original book, “Looking back on it, it was so 2006!”

Since then, the term wikinomics has become part of the Web 2.0 lexicon to describe instances of people bonding together to form communities and to innovate in a collaborative environment, regardless of what business or industry they operate in.
The concepts of the “prosumer” ­ an informed consumer ­ and the “perfect storm” ­ the convergence of technology, demographics and the global economy ­ are well covered in the book, as are the technologies that enable organisations to exploit these phenomena.

The authors’ enthusiasm for their subject leaps off the page, as they take on every conceivable objection to their arguments and gleefully swat them aside. To those who complain that the pioneering Web 2.0 site Wikipedia contains inaccuracies, they retort that so too does the Encyclopedia Britannica. But, they add, “the key difference is that Wikipedia’s fluid content-creation mechanisms and large volunteer community ensure its errors get fixed quickly”. This type of rapid self-healing is one of the most potent qualities of the modern social internet.

The final chapter details how organisations can derive business value from wikinomics, using a number of companies as examples, including Procter & Gamble and Goldcorp. Progressive businesses are contributing to a new web “that increasingly looks like a library full of chatty components that interact and talk to one another”. Rather than define the user experience and publish information for people to observe, the authors contend that the most exciting and successful
web companies and communities “have used web services to create platforms for people to co-create their own services, communities and experiences”.

The authors acknowledge that this new paradigm presents organisations with a number of challenges: “Planning must allow for a high degree of learning on your part, and the flexibility to respond to new opportunities that arise out of the interplay among participants in your business web.”

Tapscott and Williams argue that while the age of mass collaboration will seem complex and daunting to many, there is simply no going back. “Wikinomics is becoming the bread and butter of wealth creation and success,” they conclude.

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
Authors: Don Tapscott and
Anthony D Williams
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 978-1-84354-637-5