Don Tapscott - Macrowikinomics: Rebooting business and the world

MACRO WIKINOMICS

ALSO FROM DON TAPSCOTT AND ANTHONY D. WILLIAMS

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

OTHER BOOKS BY DON TAPSCOTT

Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World

Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business(with David Ticoll)

Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs
(with David Ticoll and Alex Lowy)

Creating Value in the Network Economy

Blueprint to the Digital Economy: Creating Wealth in the Era
of E-Business (with David Ticoll and Alex Lowy)

Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation

Who Knows: Safeguarding Your Privacy in a Networked World
(with Ann Cavoukian)

The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence

Paradigm Shift: The New Promise of Information Technology (with Art Caston)

Planning for Integrated Office Systems: A Strategic Approach
(with Del Henderson and Morley Greenberg)

Office Automation: A User-Driven Method
(with Del Henderson and Morley Greenberg)

MACRO WIKINOMICS

Rebooting Business and the World

Don Tapscott
and Anthony D. Williams

Dedicated to the entrepreneurs and social innovators everywhere who are rebooting business and the world.

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Published in Portfolio Penguin Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2010. Simultaneously published in the United States by Portfolio Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA).

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Copyright Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, 2010

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Tapscott, Don
Macrowikinomics : rebooting business and the world / Don Tapscott,
Anthony D. Williams.

ISBN 978-0-670-06516-5

1. Business networks. 2. Information technologySocial aspects.
3. Creative ability in business. I. Williams, Anthony D., 1974- II. Title.

HD69.S8T367 2010 658.046 C2010-903071-0

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American Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data available

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Dedicated to the entrepreneurs and social innovators everywhere
who are rebooting business and the world.

I

FROM WIKINOMICS TO MACROWIKINOMICS

1. REBOOTING THE WORLD

O n Sunday, January 17, a full five days after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, a text message sent from cell phone in Port-au-Prince was translated from Creole into English and posted on an interactive crisis mapping site that was being closely monitored by emergency responders. The text was a cry for help from a survivor and it appeared to have been sent from beneath the rubble of one of Haitis largest supermarkets. By that time, the odds of finding survivors had diminished sharply and many in the emergency relief community were giving up hope. The situation on the ground was dire indeed: without access to food or water some tens of thousands had already perished beneath the immense piles of concrete strewn across the city. But the text message posted online suggested a miracle: could the person who sent it still be alive? Was it possible they made it through the excruciatingly long wait for help? An American search-and-rescue team raced to the scene to find out. Many hours later, after having cut through several feet of concrete, the rescuers had a horrible realization: the body being pulled from the rubble was that of a child. The small, frail frame of a seven-year-old girl emerged from the supermarket wreckage, deeply shaken and barely alive. The little girl, overwhelmed with relief and emotion, recounted her terrifying experience to her astonished family. She had managed to survive on a small ration of leathery fruit snacks, and a whole lot of hope.

It was a glimmer of light in an otherwise tragic story. Indeed, few people will soon forget the horrendous damage inflicted by the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010, causing more human misery and economic damage than any earthquake on record. In a mere forty-five seconds of seismic contortions, an astonishing 15 percent of the nations population1.5 million peoplewas rendered homeless. Tens of thousands were dead, and hundreds of thousands more were injured. Any semblance of the usual infrastructure emergency crews depend on (roads, hospitals, water, sanitation, electrical power, and communication networks) was obliterated. Vast regions of the 250-year-old city utterly toppled.

The ruthless and indiscriminate wrath of natures forces, however, was just a prelude to the real misery. Circumstances on the ground made life astonishingly difficult for first responders. The sea- and airports were congested and there were too few trucks to transport supplies and no safe place to store them. No onenot the army, the government, or the aid communityhad a clear picture of the full scale of the catastrophe unfolding around them. There was confusion about precisely which supplies had been received, and in what quantities. There was also a lack of coordination among aid agencies and other entities about which people and areas to prioritize and how to overcome this logistical nightmare. This initial lack of coordination, in turn, left Haitis earthquake victims (already among the poorest people in the world) utterly destitute, without food, water, or clothing, separated from their loved ones, and many in desperate need of medical attention. Yet, out of the rubble, and in the face of tremendous suffering, came a powerful story of how an ad hoc team of volunteers from around the world came together to concoct an information management solution that far surpassed anything the official crisis response team had mustered, including the worlds largest emergency relief organizations, the U.S. State Department, and even the U.S. Army.