Wikinomics and Defining Collaboration
mark | 22 January 2008 | 12:00 amAnthony D. Williams, coauthor of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, recently blogged my phd dissertation.
The post highlights the fact that Wikinomics was in fact the first text published on the topic of mass collaboration (as far as my research could uncover). It also highlights my criticism of the book – which must be taken in context, being that of a phd literature review. In this context each work must be critically reviewed with the objective of highlighting how your own work is unique and required.
The post highlights the fact that Wikinomics was in fact the first text published on the topic of mass collaboration (as far as my research could uncover). It also highlights my criticism of the book – which must be taken in context, being that of a phd literature review. In this context each work must be critically reviewed with the objective of highlighting how your own work is unique and required.
- coordination is required for all collective activities (bringing the parts together in a way that yields synergy),
- cooperation employs linear procedures to leverage collective potential (if each participant does exactly ‘x’, then a predictable ‘y’ is the result),
- while collaboration is different in that through nonlinear creative processes (no one knows exactly what they have to do until they do it, and even then the outcome is unknown) a shared understanding is created amongst the participants – one unique to those participants and that collaboration.
- coordination = a web search: bringing together parts of the web in a way that creates meaning, i.e. synergy,
- cooperation = social bookmarking: if many people tag their webpages using a particular platform, and a particular procedure, a resource much larger than any individual could develop may be generated,
- collaboration = Wikipedia editing: read an entry, contribute in any number of modes (form, content, discussion, etc) and from an infinite number of perspectives (the multiplicity of opinion and creative volition) one becomes part of a highly complex negotiation of a shared understanding (no one owns or comprehends the whole but contributes a part of it).








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