Tag Archives: Don Tapscott
Maybe Some “Dictators” Are Wiser Than The Crowd – On The Limitations Of Open Source (Think Apple)
I’m a big fan of The Wisdom of Crowds, of Wikinomics, and Macrowikinomics. I have read all three of these books (and presented synopses of them at the First Friday Book Synopsis), and lots of articles about related practices.
I am also a non-techie (a Luddite, or, if you prefer, an idiot). I understand nothing about design, interface, user interface. I’m just a guy who likes his iMac and his iPhone and, hopefully, after the second one comes out (I was told to wait for the second one by a brother who is a techie genius) an iPad.
Why do I like Apple so much? Because an idiot like me can figure out learn to use the product very quickly. It is easy to use. Ease; simplicity… these are the critical ingredients.
Here is an article that makes a case that I am “right” about Apple. And maybe there are some realms where dictators really are wiser than the crowd. It is written by a techie, someone who understands all this stuff. The title says it all: Open User Interfaces Suck by Timothy B Lee. Here are some key excerpts:
In short, if you want to create a company that builds great user interfaces, you should organize it like Apple does: as a hierarchy with a single guy who makes all the important decisions. User interfaces are simple enough that a single guy can thoroughly understand them, so bottom-up organization isn’t really necessary. Indeed, a single talented designer with dictatorial power will almost always design a simpler and more consistent user interface than a bottom-up process driven by consensus.
This strategy works best for products where the user interface is the most important feature. The iPod is a great example of this. From an engineering perspective, there was nothing particularly groundbreaking about the iPod, and indeed many geeks sneered at it when it came out. What the geeks missed was that a portable music player is an extremely personal device whose customers are interacting with it constantly. Getting the UI right is much more important than improving the technical specs of adding features.
… In short, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the devices with the most elegant UIs come from a company with a top-down, almost cult-like, corporate culture.
—————–
Here’s a line from a former Apple employee, still a big, big fan (from here):
When working at Apple, you definitely feel like you’re a part of a group of people who will make a serious dent in the universe.
I’ll say this: Apple made a serious dent in my universe.
Where Good Ideas Come From By Johnson; Doing Both By Sidhu – Two Great Choices for the December 3 First Friday Book Synopsis
This morning, with nearly 90 people present, we presented our synopses of Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership by Tim Irwin and Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. It was a terrific morning! (Handouts, with audio, will be available on our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com, in about two weeks).
And special thanks to Kelly Lane and The Association for Women in Communications and the Dallas Freelance Alliance for their sponsorship this morning. Because of their sponsorship, we had five copies of each of the books to give away (we normally give away only one copy of each book). So, a big thank you to Kelly and both of these organizations.
Next month, December 3, we will present synopsis of these two books:
Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today’s Profit and Drives Tomorrow’s Growth by Inder Sidhu, with guest presenter Cathy Groos (Karl Krayer will be out of town).
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson, which I will present. I have already done a quick take of this book – it is profound!
I hope you will mark your calendar, and plan to join us on December 3.
The Coming Wave of “Knowledge Worker Day-laborers” (“Where will the jobs be?”, continued)
Day-laborer:
One who works by the day…
Tomorrow morning at the First Friday Book Synopsis, I present my synopsis of Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. It is a terrific book. But as I read about the “dark side” of the wikinomics economy, a phrase came to mind that I have not been able to escape. So – here’s my prediction:
We are becoming a nation, and world, filled with “knowledge worker day-laborers.”
You know what a day-laborer is. It is a person who shows up at a site where others gather, hoping to be hired for the day. Traditionally, this is a phrase describing physical laborers, expecially farm laborers. They show up, early in the morning, on the right street corner, hoping to be hired for the day.
Well, the book Macrowikinomics describes all sorts of ways that companies are using more than just “their employees,” and all sorts of ways that individuals are collaborating on short term projects. This is all well and good. But…where will the actual jobs be? Or, to put it differently, how will people feel secure, confident that they will have work to do for the next day, week, month, decade…?
Conisder these thoughts, from the book:
(re. the “joblessness” of the younger adults, throughout the developed world) – This is a problem of epic proportions… There is a real danger that the largest, most highly educated cohort of young people in history could become “the lost generation.”
and
The trend for many companies is clear: if we can do more with fewer, we will… talent can be inside and outside of firms… Aren’t wikinomics business models the death knell for jobs?
and
The Big Scares (my observations)
• are we becoming a world of (internet connected and enabled, computer terminal) “day-laborers” – always looking for the next job/assignment/project… with little or no security and continuity? (in other words – how will people make a living in this brave, new, scary world?)
• Think about this: IBM – from 399,000 to 100,000 by 2017 (projected cuts in actual employees – their planned “HR transformation program”).
Think about that last item – IBM intends to cut nearly 75% of its jobs, and maybe “hire” many of the same people back on an “as needed basis” for specific tasks/jobs. “The trend for many companies is clear: if we can do more with fewer, we will….”
Yes, the wikinomics world is an exciting world of collaboration and multiple breakthroughs. And the book tries to paint an optimistic picture. The book says: “We think that there is a stronger case to be made that wikinomics principles help bolster fledgling enterprises by supercharging their innovative capabilities and that small enterprises in turn are the most reliable job creators.”
But I can’t help but think that what we really face is a not-so-brave, not-so-secure world of “Knowledge worker day-laborers,” hanging around their virtual street corners each morning looking for work for the day, facing a very uncertain future.
“This is a problem of epic proportions.”
Keep Learning – It’s Your Only Job Security (Macrowikinomics reinforces this ever-more-true truth)
Yesterday you graduated and you were set for life – only needing to “keep up” a bit with ongoing developments in your chosen field. Today when you graduate you’re set for, say, fifteen minutes. If you took a technical course in the first year of your studies, half of what you learned may be obsolete by your fourth year… What counts more is your capacity to learn lifelong, to think, research, find information, analyze, synthesize, contextualize, and critically evaluate; to apply research to solving problems, to collaborate and communicate. This is particularly important for students and employees who compete in a global economy… given networked business models, knowledge workers face competition in real time. Workers and managers must learn, adapt, and perform like never before.
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World
{Peter Drucker said it first:
“The only job security is found in your own ability to keep learning!”}
{And Peter Senge:
“Through learning, we re-create ourselves.”}
Macrowikinomics – a Wiki that helps save human lives, and so much more (this Friday at the First Friday Book Synopsis)
In Wikinomics, the opening story of the book is a story about a man who bought a practically defunct mining organization, and with wikinomics, turned his “useless’ investment into a multi-billion dollar “gold mine.”
In Macrowikinomics, the opening story is a story about a 7-year-old girl who was rescued from the rubble in Haiti with a text message and a rapidly mobilized wiki to help find survivors. Here’s a quote from the book:
Soon hundreds of volunteers around the world were using Ushahadi-Haiti to translate, categorize, and geo-locate urgent life-and-death text messages in real-time. Many of the volunteers spent weeks on end on their laptops in a dimly lit school basement in Boston that Meier (Patrick Meier, director of the Kenyan born mapping organization Ushahidi) converted into a makeshift situation room. Although located some 1640 miles from the scene, volunteer crisis mappers used Skype to relay critical information about the location of potential survivors to search-and-rescue teams on the ground in Port-au-Prince… As a result of their dedication, Ushahidi’s crisis mappers found themselves center stage in an urgent effort to save lives during one of the largest relief operations in history.
This everyone-as-informant mapping heralds some pretty profound changes as the wiki world revolutionizes the work of humanitarians, journalists, and soldiers who provide aid and assistance in some of the most unforgiving circumstances imaginable.
This Friday, I will present my synopsis of Macrowikinomics. I think you can see that this book helps move the idea of wikinomics from the arena of pure profit to its use and usefulness in much greater causes. If you will be near Dallas this Friday, come join us for our 7:00 am gathering. (My colleague Karl Krayer will also present a synopsis of Derailed). Click here to register.
Coming for the November First Friday Book Synopsis – Tapscott’s Macrowikinomics, and Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership
We had a wonderful morning at the October First Friday Book Synopsis. Karl presented a synopsis of the terrific new Tony Schwartz (et. al) book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance.
I presented my synopsis of The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems by Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, and Monique Sternin, which described how the worst problems can be solved — in fact, in many cases have already been solved – by the successful “positive deviants” found in almost any and every group.
Both books were really good, useful, challenging, books. We will have our synopses, with handouts + audio, up on our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com, available in a couple of weeks.
For next month, (the first Friday of November, November 3), we have chosen these two books. Karl will present Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership by Tim Irwin, Patrick Lencioni (Foreword).
And I will present a synopsis of the brand new book by Don Tapscott (et. al) Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World. (I can’t wait to read this!) His earlier book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (which I presented at the May, 2007 First Friday Book Synopsis), is a genuinely significant book in this/for this connected age.
If you are in/will be in the DFW area, come join us on November 3. As one enthusiastic participant said this morning – “great content, really good food, great networking – the best event I attend each month.”
We agree!
