Wikinomics and Learning

I just finished reading Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Authors Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams do a good job outlining how the World Wide Web moved from its first stage as a static "digital newspaper," to its new incarnation (Web 2.0) as a "shared canvas." This transformation has a massive impact on how knowledge is created and shared, and how innovation and value creation now happens. People are no longer just consumers of information and knowledge, they are active participants in creating and sharing it.

Mass, online collaboration has created open source software that is widely used throughout the world today. Whether talking about server software (Apache), operating systems (Linux), web browsers (Firefox), or learning platforms (Moodle), there are many examples of freely available software that has been collaboratively created by people worldwide sharing source code and constantly improving the product.

As Tapscott and Williams point out, this model of open collaboration is now finding its way into all kinds of problem-solving exercises. Goldcorp, a Canadian-based mining company, posted to the web all of its geological information for a gold mine in Northern Ontario, seeking input on where the most gold would likely be found. Those who submitted the best analyses that led to gold being found shared in the profits. Likewise, many research-intensive companies submit challenges to a site called InnoCentive, offering rewards for solutions to specific problems.

Smart organizations realize that knowledge and ideas within the organization are often compartmentalized and inaccessible to most. They are finding ways to expedite knowledge sharing within via collaborative online tools. And really smart organizations also realize that internal knowledge is finite, and are finding creative ways to tap into the vast knowledge afforded by Web 2.0.

What do these trends mean for learning? When reflecting on this question, I think of the many IT folks I have worked with over the years, such as systems administrators, web masters, and programmers. These individuals were fully engaged in Web 2.0 before it became a buzz word. Think about it. When someone in IT is faced with a problem (e.g. server down, web pages not loading properly, missing data, database malfunctions, etc.), the clock is ticking and they have to figure things out quickly. They don't have time to take a course to learn something new. These folks go online and through searches of websites, databases, FAQ sites, and, most importantly, online communities of peers, they find the answers. They are learning like this each and every day.

Of course, IT people have a predilection for learning in this way. They are very much at home on the web. But why couldn't we all learn this way? Perhaps the most valuable training we could provide within our organizations is teaching people how to be web literate (e.g. how to research, discern quality, learn and collaborate online). It's like the old fable of teaching people to fish, rather than giving them fish. We could do worse than teaching people how to learn, and contribute to the learning of others, in a connected world.