Bred on AIM conversations and cell-phone obsession, the digital generation stands on a social constitution of independence – yet interdependence, collaboration – yet personal responsibility, and participation – yet privacy. As Tapscott and Williams establish early in their book, “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything,” this new approach to communicating, socializing, and working is based on openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally – the tenets of the new wikinomics.
And as this generation matures into leaders of community and industry, this constitution follows. The principles of wikinomics are integrating into the new business world. Web 2.0, with its user-generated transparency, has forced businesses to adapt to a world where secrets aren’t secret and, as Scoble and Israel posited, showing a vulnerable and flawed public face can be an asset for a business, in that vulnerabilities and flaws reflect reality and genuineness. In the digital age, companies that experience success will embrace new technology and the interactive, wikinomical approach to business.
In the second half of the Wikinomics book, Tapscott and Williams consider how this new culture will affect the workplace, opining that wikinomics have forced significant change in the culture, process, structure, and economics of work. This generation was raised on communication and collaboration, born of the Web, and brings creativity, independence, diversity, and technology as employees. They also expect the same of their employers. Good work happens through collaboration, evidenced in Tapscott’s and Williams’ Geek Squad example, and the Web and Web 2.0 applications can foster collaboration even when employees are separated by great geographic distance. The authors declare that these new technologies allow for virtual work teams and work places, and allow employees to engage with colleagues around the world, with fewer hassles and more valuable collaboration experiences. Some companies are even completely virtual.
This generation wants to collaborate. We want to be empowered by a trusting employer, and no longer seek out a patriarchal employer who will take care of us into old age in exchange for a lifetime of workerbee loyalty. But such trust requires, even more so, clear goals, structure, and discipline from the employer.
Tapscott and Williams believe that consultancy will be the “dominant contractual model” for work, allowing for more freedom in the worklife and more entrepreneurs.
Wikinomics and this independent, constantly connected young workforce has led to the birth of the “Location Independent Professional” – a principle of work and life that, because of the Web and Web 2.0, as well as that cell phone and instant-messaging addiction honed as teenagers, allows professionals to live and work from wherever they choose. As one individual wrote, the traditional worklife clashed with the life and values he sought:
“… I became institutionalised. My daily working life was run by someone else. Decisions that shaped my future were not made by me and I was deluding myself that I was in control…”
Web 2.0 and wikinomics allows workers to live the life they choose. New technology allows us to perform duties no matter where we are in the world, collaborating with colleagues, and communicating as needed. All you need to work is a computer with an internet connection and, perhaps, a telephone. This new technology has allowed us to escape the tradition of being beholden to the patriarchal employer, empowering us with the collaborative and free nature of the digital age.
And this kind of empowerment is what this generation needs to thrive. Whether working from a beach in Thailand or the suburbs of Virginia, the trust and collaboration that comes from the virtual office or location-independent consultancy will allow workers to feel confident and charged with the task of the highest quality work. We want to contribute to industry and business, but, as latchkey kids, we also want to balance out quality of life, too. Wikinomics make that possible.
