Collaborative Minds

                This article, Collaborative Minds, by Tapscott and Williams, offered a lot of good advice about how to manage a business in a collaborative economy. I like how it took the information about social media platforms and went beyond just what the tools are and how they are used.  It was really interesting to see the implications of using social media and what may be required to do so productively. The authors highlight openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally as the major forces that drive innovation and wealth “to an unprecedented scale.” It is the last of these four forces that intrigued me the most, because it has to do with breaking down boundaries both inside and outside the organization.

                The argument that I found most interesting was the authors’ assertion that citizens can also act globally, not just businesses. The evolution of a digital world has empowered everyday citizens and given them access to means of creation that are right at their fingertips. For this reason, their expectations for businesses are higher, because self-organized production is so close within their reach. I think it is appropriate to refer to people as “prosumers” instead of consumers, because they have the ability to produce as much as they can consume. These new expectations have serious implications for managers because it changes the fundamental ways in which businesses used to operate.

                From that point comes the aspect of this article that was most surprising to me, because in my mind I had imagined it completely different.  The authors begin to question how managers should go about integrating the principles of wikinomics into their businesses, and they concede that “you should throw away some of your detailed plans.” This is what shocked me because I imagined that companies would have a specific, planned out approach to integrating openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally since they are such new principles of business that they would want to know exactly what they are doing, when and how. This is probably because I know little to nothing about running a business as a student in Lynch. As I continued reading, however, I started to see where they were coming from by making this claim.  They compared the situation to a kindergarten teacher, who allows his or her students some freedom in the beginning and then steps in to reinforce and encourage the good ideas or patterns he/she sees emerging in the classroom.  From this standpoint, I could see why applying wikinomics should allow space for learning from what works and what doesn’t, and flexibility in terms of responding to new things that pop up unexpectedly.  In teaching, it is hard to plan out exactly what you want to do, because there will inevitably be something that happens that will eat up time or take your attention away from what you planned on doing.  There may be a behavior problem; the students may not understand anything you are trying to teach; a student may share a really good idea or thought that you diverge to talk about; there are so many things that can happen to disrupt your initial plans, that it seems counterproductive to explicitly plan an approach to teaching with so many details and no room for anything else.

                This is similar for businesses because there are going to be ideas that thrive and ones that fail, and you must be able to alter your approach as you see these things unfold.  It seems like a good idea to start off as a kindergarten teacher would, allowing for space and freedom for innovation, and through examining and analyzing the practices that are producing the results and patterns you desire, then you integrate them into your plans. It is important to take into account what is working for the community overall, so managers must stay on their toes and be ready to redirect their efforts if one way doesn’t work out. I can imagine that this would be hard to achieve if a manager is so stuck in an explicit outline of how to apply these concepts of wikinomics, so, as the authors recommend, despite what I originally though, it does make sense to “throw away some of your detailed plans.” Part of being involved in this new world of business that is emerging has to do with abandoning old business attitudes and practices so that you can really capitalize on what openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally can offer your company. This means going against the reflexes that have been engrained in your mind and taking risks to do things you have never done before.  In my teaching experiences, I have seen firsthand that no matter how well a lesson is planned, it can be a complete flop. And instead of being discouraged, you just have to learn from it and see how it can help you do better next time.  As Tapscott and Williams suggest, heightened expectations are requiring businesses to learn from their own attempts as well as others’ experiences in order to succeed. The authors note that “the monolithic, self-contained, and inwardly focused corporation is dying” so they must find a way for these new models of business to work best for the company’s competitiveness and growth.

            Since I’m not well-informed about businesses and managers, I am interested to hear from all of you about your fears associated with this paradigm shift and what major concerns you have in regard to openness, peering, sharing and acting globally.