This is a guest post submitted by Lance from Gogme.biz.
“Wikinomics” meaning the “economics of mass collaboration” is a phenomenon described by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in their book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. “Wikinomics” is a word combining economics and Wikipedia - the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit and contribute. This model of wealth creation is based on collaboration and sharing between masses of people. With the advent of the internet, billions of individuals can stay connected, access to a wide range of information and given the collaborative tools to actively participate in wealth creation, innovation and social development in ways previously unimagined. These individuals have already join forces in large scale collaborations that produce innovative new goods and services that rival those of large corporations.
Let us take another look at a traditional form of wealth creation, entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs play a vital role in improving economic growth worldwide as key contributors to productivity and growth, employment generation and technological innovation. Governments, local communities and higher education institutions have implement dynamic strategies to nurture and cultivate entrepreneurs. However, even with all the external support and grants, entrepreneurship is still often difficult to undertake and vast majority of new business fail. There must be a better way to impart aspiring entrepreneurs with knowledge, skills and motivation to enable entrepreneurial success.
If we allow wikinomics and entrepreneurial learning to mix, can we nurture thousands of entrepreneurs through single large scale collaboration? The best way for a person to learn entrepreneurship is by being an entrepreneur. Some things in life you can only learn by experience and entrepreneurship is a constant state of discovery. Can we encourage entrepreneurship by letting thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs to own and manage a business together over the internet?
Wikinomics embodies four powerful new ideas: openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. Using these four powerful ideas as the foundation, let us discuss the possibility of a global collaborative project to encourage entrepreneurship through business ownership, online participation, social networking, decision-making, interacting with business mentors, managing businesses via a business excellence framework and getting explicit business knowledge of various industries. The project will allow thousands of entrepreneurs from all over the world to own and manage a single business entity which control various brick-and-mortar businesses and internet businesses.
Peering
Most entrepreneurs are adults and late teens. Adults learn best when they feel in control and have choices in direction of the learning process. Based on peering in Wikinomics, the global project will allow entrepreneurs to decide on all areas of business dealings such as staff selection, sales approaches, product designs, business framework, business venturing, etc. Existing web tools such as internet poll and forums will allow such collective decision-making possible.
Openness
Openness is associated with freedom, flexibility, engagement and access. The project based on Wikinomics is highly transparent. A reliable operation team will carry out decisions collectively made by aspiring entrepreneurs. The operation team will update daily business activities and challenges faced through blogs and twitters (a form of micro-blogging). Progressively, entrepreneurs will know how the collective decisions shaped the businesses. Entrepreneurs are given the space to come to their own conclusions based on evidence offered to them, in a non-pressured way which encourages learning.
Sharing
Sharing of information and opportunities from the business operations will allow entrepreneurs to gain explicit business knowledge of various industries. Entrepreneurs can communicate with other entrepreneurs and business mentors through a business networking platform with social networking capabilities. Through a friendly and informal learning environment, entrepreneurs will find future business partners and opportunities for their own business venture.
Action Globally
The global project based on Wikinomics will allow entrepreneurs from all over the world to experiment with business ideas and fail cheaply. Failures and mistakes are kept to the minimum through the gathering of opinions and decisions from a large group of entrepreneurs. In the business world, there are many unforeseen risks and difficulties. Risks taking cannot be taught, however if we can face these difficulties together, our risks will be diversified and the valuable experience can be put to good use when we undertake the challenge of starting our own business.
If you are interested to see how Wikinomics can be applied in entrepreneurial learning and how a social network can facilitate aspiring entrepreneurs from all over the world to co-own and co-manage small businesses over the internet, feel free to visit Gogme.biz .
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I get to be first for once. How nice. I’ve read the book you are talking about, if you like that, I recommend “The Tipping Point”. Right up that alley. Great book
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This is a new study that made up our mind to install mass collaboration.
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So it really worth a look?
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Ok I am sorry but this post was too long and confusing for me to read the whole thing…
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@Ryan McLean - Haha. Basically, the main point is: it’s important to interact with other people when running any type of business.
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