Wikinomics...I Don't Mean to Rant

As the comedian Dennis Miller use to say, “I don’t mean to get into a rant here” but I really have to be honest about my beliefs whenever I read a book about revolutions. I’m not trying to be negative, nor do I believe that everything written in Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams is wrong. To the contrary, I think a lot of what they have to say makes a lot of sense, especially when it comes to the “Principles of Wikinomics”. Their ideas on, “Being open, peering, sharing, and acting globally” are good ones. But the key question everyone should be asking is: Does this represent something truly inventive, or is just the speed in which everything is done that has really changed? Yes, I admit we didn’t always have the internet, IPods, and cellular telephones, but does that mean that people didn’t communicate?

I found it incredibly ironic that one of the words Tapscott and Williams uses to define peering is socializing. I know I’m old, but when I grew up socializing meant something completely different than it does today. Today many people socialize without ever meeting a person or leaving the comfort of their living room. Is this really a positive thing, and something we should adjust to? And if it is, does this revolution discount the work on emotional intelligence made famous Daniel Goleman in the 1990’s? I mean, if I never have to leave the house to socialize, why should I aspire to become emotionally intelligent? For that matter, why should anyone study leadership, or do anything that can be done faster or better by a machine?

One could argue that the more technologically dependent our society becomes, the less intelligent we become. In sports coaches focus on the basics….a baseball player can’t hit a homerun before they learn the mechanics of how to hit a ball. Yes, chicks love the long-ball, but you can’t hit one if you don’t know how to play baseball. The same with life, how can someone hit a homerun in life if they don’t know the basics? Society will always need garage collectors, home builders, manufacturers, taxi drivers, and so on. How will the Wikinomics revolution make life better for those people? It is easy to wax philosophical about the benefits for organizations, and yes, the new technology does offer great new ways to make more money for some. But what benefit for the rest of us?

Many of the examples Tapscott and Williams point to are organizations and people that already have the benefit of great wealth. In the opening of their book they point to Rob McEwen, the CEO of Goldcorp, Inc. as an example of the new thinking. Mr. McEwen was a former mutual fund manager who through a hostile takeover became the majority owner of the company. His new idea was to offer $575,000 in prize money for ideas on ways for his organization to find more gold on its property in Canada. Great idea, but hardly something the Average Joe could take advantage of. So, where does the average person find life betterment and enrichment in all this? I might be able to answer that question later…or maybe not.