Companies With No Walls

In the book Wikinomics, authors Tapscott and Williams put forth an interesting future -- a global economy where the walls that divide business are gone and mass collaboration is the norm. Right now, this is hard for me to believe. It's difficult to believe that our capatalistic society will ever reach the point where companies open the doors and post their most valuable information to generate collaboration. How will anyone make money? Are they suggesting that an employee of one company may openly collaborate with a competitor to solve the competitor's problem? It's just hard for me to fathom that world.

But collaboration is a trend. In the book Unnatural Leadership, authors Dotlich and Cairo identify four trends that support less traditional leadership. One of those is that "constant collaboration will be the norm."

The world that Tapscott and Williams describe may happen ... someday. But I think that someday is a long way off.

However, between now and then, I do see an increase in collaboration, especially within companies and between companies that are not competitors. People from FedEx may help a moving company work out a logistics problem. And blogs may be the way that collaboration happens. But I don't see those same FedEx people helping UPS. I don't see consultants "giving" away their knowledge for free on a blog.

At this point I probably have more questions than answers ...

How do people locate blogs like the ones described in the book? The blogs I see are full of personal musings, stories and opinions. They are not problem solving, collaborative tools.

How can companies use blogs to promote collaboration between departments that don't otherwise work together? How can they promote these blogs so people find them and contribute to them?

How can we use blogs to stimilate learning and the application of learning beyond the classroom? It could be a great follow-up tool. I can see using a blog to group problem-solve after a class. THIS seems to be the world I can see sooner rather than later.

But how?

I have more read and more to learn.