The case for collaboration: the authors of Wikinomics contend that web sites have become passe, and that communicators must buil

about the book

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams Penguin, 2006, 320 pages

Effective communications have traditionally depended on an ability to relay information to a large community as effectively as to an individual. Until recently, business communicators could count on some degree of control over their message regardless of the medium they chose or the audience they were targeting. The advent of social media has introduced an era of collaborative communication that raises many questions. Are corporate blogs necessary to influence consumer buying decisions? Can low-cost viral marketing campaigns outpace traditional media buying? How influential, accurate and necessary have resources like Wikipedia become in an increasingly connected world?

Researchers Don Tapscott, head of the management consultancy New Paradigm, along with colleague Anthony D. Williams, leveraged US$9 million in research to answer these questions with Wikinomics, a book whose focus is as broad and ambitious as Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat. Just as Friedman made compelling arguments for a flattening of the business world marked by the globalization of marketing, production and delivery of everything from iPods to executive assistance, Tapscott and Williams establish the influence of collaboration on an unprecedented scale in the development of everything from aircraft design to encyclopedias to open source software.

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Wikinomics is built around four central ideas: openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. These ideas are woven throughout the book in the context of economic theory, American history, boardrooms and newsrooms. According to the authors, web sites have become passe. They argue that in order to thrive, communicators must instead build thriving online communities. The merits of new media platforms such as blogs, instant messaging, wikis, chat rooms, podcasting and more are discussed at length. "Peer production"--harnessing the creative energy of massive amounts of people--is emphasized as the key to an ever-evolving communications revolution.

The authors meticulously document how Google, MySpace, Second Life and YouTube have changed the way we communicate and collaborate in both professional and personal settings. The discussions of "Prosumers" and the "democratization of media" shed light on the ways that consumers of news are changing the way that news is reported, sometimes to the extent that we are creating it ourselves. Reassuringly, the authors are careful to note that the world will always need professional reporters, writers and editors to deliver the very best content.

The final chapter consists of one sentence inviting the reader to "edit this book!" by visiting www.wikinomics.com, where the discussion continues via (naturally) a wiki called the Wikinomics Playbook. It includes real-time updates reflecting new communication media that have emerged since the book was published. This "unfinished chapter" will be published in September. In addition, readers are invited to edit the online version of the book itself.

In the end, that's what makes slogging through Wikinomics' drier portions worthwhile. Armed with an understanding of how wikinomics is changing the world of communication, we're left to do what we do best: Communicate.

Dave Donohue is director of media strategy at OutCast Communications in New York City.