Wikinomics – How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

The Globe and Mail features a 7-part article series written by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, the authors of Wikinomics (How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything)

The focus is on how businesses today can take advantage of technologies and practices based on collaborative posterchild Wikipedia (“the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit“):

Forget everything you know about the way we do business. Mass collaboration is revolutionizing the corporation, the economy, and nearly every aspect of management. In this seven-part series, co-authors of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, due out Jan. 2, explain new business models that will empower the prepared firm and destroy those that fail to adjust.

Tapscott and Williams provide these insights in the first article:

It runs on a wiki — software that enables multiple users to edit the content of Web pages. Despite the risks inherent in an open encyclopedia in which everyone can add their views, and constant battles with detractors and saboteurs, Wikipedia continues to grow rapidly in scope, quality and traffic. The English-language version has more than a million entries and there are ninety-two sister sites in languages ranging from Polish and Japanese to Hebrew and Catalan.

While Wikipedia’s mission is to make the sum of human knowledge accessible, not all examples of mass collaboration are guided by altruism. Take Linux, an open source operating system that emerged from the hacker-fringes of the Internet in 1991. At first, many doubted the efficacy of an operating system developed by a Web-enabled community of anarchist programmers. Oh how the critics were wrong.

…get your mass collaboration road map ready. Barriers to entry are vanishing and the trade-offs that individuals make when deciding to contribute voluntarily to projects and organizations are changing, creating opportunities to dramatically reconfigure the way we produce and exchange information, knowledge, and culture. Companies that recognize, address, and learn to tap mass collaboration will benefit, while those that ignore and resist will miss important opportunities for innovation and cost reduction, and may even go out of business. Now that the genie’s been unleashed, there’s no putting it back in the bottle.

Chesbrough Delivers More on Open Business Models

On TechWeb, Henry Chesbrough introduces us to the innovation imperative and the concepts with his new book:

Companies that keep their intellectual property too close to the vest risk missing out on critical business innovations that idea-sharing could generate. Open business models foster collaboration with customers and suppliers to everyone’s benefit.

His Winter 2007 article in Strategy+Business is here: Why Companies Should have Open Business Models

Chesbrough’s new book and successor to Open Innovation is Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape

I’ve ordered it and will update this blog entry with a forthcoming review.

In the meantime, the jacket cover provides a glimpse of why this should be an important read:

In Open Business Models, Chesbrough takes readers to the next step—explaining how to make money in an open innovation landscape. He provides a diagnostic instrument enabling you to assess your company’s current business model, and explains how to overcome common barriers to creating a more open model. He also offers compelling examples of companies that have developed such models—including Procter & Gamble, IBM, and Air Products.

In addition, Chesbrough introduces a new set of players—“innovation intermediaries”—who facilitate companies’ access to external technologies. He explores the impact of stronger IP protection on intermediate markets for innovation, and profiles firms (such as Intellectual Ventures and Qualcomm) that center their business model on innovation and IP.

This vital resource provides a much-needed road map to connect innovation with IP management, so companies can create and capture value from ideas and technologies—wherever in the world they are found.

2007 – Importance of Innovation Shows No Sign of Slowing

According to Fortune’s excellent blog Business Innovation Insider, 2006 was to be the year of innovation. As a quick recap in a previous role, I highlighted a variety of innovative practices and also presented some thought pieces:

> How Strong is your Idea Capital? In this world of hyperchange in virtually every industry, it’s time to think about ideas as a new form of capital available to your organization: Idea Capital. [more]

> Kraft looks to the world’s ideas for its next innovations
> Dell’s Build-to-Order now at Wal-Mart – Who needs to innovate when you can copy?
> Innovation Math: Innovation = Challenge + Response
> How will Innovation put you out of business?
> Culture of Innovation & the Future of the Enterprise…
> Everyone’s Ideas
> Challenge-Based Thinking
> Google’s Employees get the Limelight

I took a break from writing to embark on an exciting new role. Now looking ahead to 2007, we can safely predict that innovation will become even more important. Google continues to expand its online applications suite, and Chrysler has decided to outsource production to China.

As the year unfolds, I’ll pick highlights globally and share them here with you, along with some personal thoughts.

Happy New Year!

Alan Wunsche

Welcome!

Welcome to White Space, a blog about innovation.

Feel free to browse around and contact me and be sure to read the disclaimer.

Please note this is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not reflect those of my employer.

Alan Wunsche