Oct 04 2007
The Value of Transparency and Mass Collaboration
I listened to an interesting talk by Don Tapscott at the CIO magazine CIO 100 conference recently. Don is the author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (here’s a good video on the subject) and writes regularly on his blog. Don was educating a large group of CIOs on the value of transparency and how mass collaboration can help drive innovation in ways that were unworkable just a few years ago. It was interesting to see the reactions from a group of people that largely work within companies that have traditional organizational silos and old school reporting structures. Most of them are playing a severe game of catch up with regards to collaboration within their own organizations, let alone leveraging the “wisdom of crowds.” Huge ‘deer in the headlights’ looks from many of them!
Don came up with the best line of the conference when he reminded us of the now infamous quote from Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of IBM) in 1943 when he supposedly said; “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” (There is no credible evidence he said this, BTW). Don offered that Tom was way off; we only need one - the Internet. Not far off, since the Internet has already fundamentally changed how we work, live and play. Now it’s changing the way we collaborate. And for the Millennial generation, they don’t know life without it. It will be interesting to see how traditional corporate structures and thinking change as this generation moves up in the work force.
So how has Web 2.0 changed your work life? Are the companies you work for adapting to harness the collective wisdom of crowds? Is the concept of transparency gaining a foothold? I’d be interested in hearing about how your companies are reacting to the power of collaboration.