Open source. Open space. Sharing. “Peering.” Peering into what? The future of business, economics, social circles? Opportunity knocking! Opportunity slipping past so quickly that few can harness it.
Reading the first chapter of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams while sitting quietly on my sofa on a Friday evening seems ironic: the outline of an online, technological knowledge revolution in the palm of my hands in the form of a hardcover book (with a dust jacket – why, oh why haven’t dust jackets gone the way of the breadbox?) and I’m reading it solo.
At first I’m struck by how amazing, and real-time it seems. Having just finished both Leadership Essentials and Methods and Technologies of Facilitation, the concepts are fresh in my mind. In LE, I read Daniel Pink’s Drive where he discussed Wikipedia and the volunteer-driven movement, people who create for a purpose, and sometimes a purpose with a profit. In Methods and Tech, the concepts of Open Space collaborations and World Café conversations open up the possibilities in a facilitation setting and environments both business and educational.
Sharing ideas and “intellectual property” can foster an incredibly flexible, fluid and creative environment where ideas flourish, breakthroughs are made, and people –multiple people and maybe even the company - can benefit. The trust that happens in that kind of situation. I think of the conversations about copyright, and how the Creative Commons can blow it out of the water.
And then I think of chaos. And environmental and ecosystem fragility. Tapscott and Williams liken the world prior to Web 2.0 as the Galapagos Islands, unique ecosystems separated by time and space (pg. 28). But what happens when you introduce species to foreign lands? Sometimes nothing. But often, a foreign species will either die off or propagate profusely to the detriment and sometimes extermination of natives.
Businesses with the old model of hierarchy will need to adapt to survive. And I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing. I think of my organization and the current lack of trust due to a lack of transparency, and I can see how blowing things wide open could immensely improve morale. But ideas mean nothing without action, and that trust would be lost if the hierarchy decided to keep its control in spite of requesting the ideas of the masses. Only when the masses choose to take action against an inert leader will action occur if the leader isn’t open to the ideas it presents. With mass collaboration, it is definitely more possible than ever before.
What about those who can’t keep up? Who don’t have the technology? The world is changing so rapidly that we’ve already determined people must continually learn to survive. At what point does the learning become overwhelming? Or is that where you outsource?! When you can’t keep up, you open it up to the masses to have them help you do your job.
I see the benefits, the amazing things that can happen with this type of collaboration. I also see challenges of trying to keep up, of trying to turn a profit when so much is open, of trying to retain good people while still open-sourcing some information. How do you keep your employees feeling valued?
We learn a great deal online now. Trying to find reliable sources can be a challenge. Do we end up tailoring our online experiences too much to ourselves so we don’t see the other side? Is this a detriment to real news? How can educators harness this collaborative effort for learning? Right now, I’ve got more questions than answers.
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