Review: MacroWikinomics

Authors Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams highlight organizations that are embracing Wikinomics.

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Anthony Verde

The book: MacroWikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams; Portfolio.

The big idea: None of us are as smart as all of us. MacroWikinomics describes a new world in which innovation and problem solving are accomplished through collaborative networks.

The backstory: Tapscott heads nGenera Insight, a think tank, and teaches at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Williams is a senior fellow at The Lisbon Council, also a think tank. Some critics griped that Wikinomics -- the pair's 2006 book, which laid out the economics of mass collaboration -- was too optimistic. The authors are still breathless, but this time it's thanks to their many real-world examples.

If you read nothing else: The chapter on reinventing financial services, which proposes casting a public eye on risk management and the valuation of financial products, is timely. The education chapter's vision of a "meta-university," at which students learn from the best professors anywhere in the world, is inspirational.

Envelope pushers: Mixed in with the usual suspects -- Zipcar, the Huffington Post -- are many cool examples like Local Motors, a start-up that leverages an online community of 4,500 designers to create next-generation cars.

Rigor rating: 8 (1=Who Moved My Cheese?; 10=Good to Great). The authors used principles of mass collaboration to solicit ideas and examples, resulting in hundreds of named contributors.

Leigh Buchanan is an editor at large for Inc. Magazine. A former editor at Harvard Business Review and founding editor of WebMaster magazine, she writes regular columns on leadership and workplace culture. @LeighEBuchanan