dispatches from the new world of work

"Us"

BusinessWeek has a terrific cover story (06.20), "THE POWER OF US: Mass Collaboration on the INTERNET Is Shaking Up Business." Here are some sample quotes:

"The nearly 1 billion people online worldwide—along with their shared knowledge, social contacts, online reputations, computing power, and more—are rapidly becoming a collective force of unprecedented power. For the first time in human history, mass cooperation across time and space is suddenly economical."
—BW/06.20.05

"There's a fundamental shift in power happening. Everywhere, people are getting together and, using the Internet, disrupting whatever activities they're involved in."
—Pierre Omidyar, founder, eBay (from BW)

"What sets these new technologies apart from those of the Internet's first generation is their canny way of turning self-interest into social benefit—and real economic value."
—BW/06.05

The "architecture of participation"
—Tim O'Reilly/Tech-book publisher (from BW)

All this led me to create a new Chapter in my Master Presentation, REI.500. Title (swiping from BW): "The Power of We." (I like "we" better, the hell with the grammarians.) You'll find it as a new Special Presentation.

Tom Peters posted this on 06/15/05.

Comments

what the hell took them soooo long....

Posted by paisley amoeba at June 15, 2005 5:43 PM

Thanks for this post and the "Special" information. I know when I got my BW the articles and "real economic value" jumped off the page!

The "collective wisdom" and/or universal benefit and/or economic value or whatever it becomes: it pays off.

Posted by Sean at June 15, 2005 5:57 PM

I wanted to share with everyone a recent posting from Schwartz's blog (ceo of sun) on Sun's forum discussing the "participation age". I found the discussion insightful and its content has helped crystalized facts about important collaborative events taking place electronically through mediums such eBay and Amazon. Check out the event transcript to read in your leisure.

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/features/participate.html

Posted by Dau at June 15, 2005 6:28 PM

Dau: Nice link!

Posted by tom peters at June 16, 2005 3:38 AM

This is one of the true powers of the internet.... and its often on a small scale (and thus sometimes overlooked).

My own tiny example: I teach English as a foreign language. On a web board, I connected with a Japanese man who also teaches English. We share many ideas on language teaching.

We have since kept in contact via email.. and then recently via a team blog. I have learned a tremendous amount from him. I often apply his insights or ideas to my own teaching the day after reading his post. And I share his ideas with other teachers in my office.

He lives in Japan. I live in Thailand. He's Japanese. Im American. Yet we now have a way of collaborating.... and a way of sharing and applying our collective wisdom almost instantly.

Very powerful.

......

Posted by AJ Hoge at June 16, 2005 7:57 AM

BW essay is something that most of us in the blogsosphere already know! Sadly, only a few businesses are waking up to the potential of the wisdom of us and starting to use the raw potential locked up in their employees. I wrote a post on my blog a couple of weeks ago about social software and what it would take for organizations to participate in this new digital order. http://www.advancinginsights.com/mybiz/fear_greed_ignorance_liars_blogit

jim wilde
www.advancinginsights.com

Posted by jim wilde at June 16, 2005 8:09 AM

AJ Hoge:

Yes, but in favor of "English" speakers. Then, of "Chinese" speakers.

I have the hard time explaining this phenomenon to my wife, who's only speak Japanese and seldom uses internet.

Posted by kenjimori at June 16, 2005 11:36 PM

Kenji,

You are absolutely right. Most native English speakers dont know how fortunate they are. I have great respect for my students... who must learn English if they want to participate in the global network/brain.

But I think it can also work on a smaller scale-- for example, within Japan among Japanese speakers.

Posted by AJ Hoge at June 17, 2005 6:57 AM