Wikinomics

Just finished reading Wikinomics in bits and pieces...
Its authored by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams. Its about how mass collaboration is changing the world. Some examples made are:
- Linux
- Wikipedia
- Social networking - facebook, twitter, et al
- Online gaming - massively multiplayer games
- Topcoder
- etc

While most techies will have a fair idea about all of the above, the ones that I found interesting were on collaboration in non-IT companies e.g.
- Goldcorp (geological data shared for better prospecting)
- Norvartis, Merck, etc (clinical data shared for better drug discovery)
- Boeing (involving suppliers for aircraft design)
- Chinese motor cycles
- etc.

While most of the book has "world changing" examples from the field of Information Technology, the interesting ones are from non IT world.

What would really change the world is if non tech companies can harness the power of collaboration and make more efficient use of the world's scarce natural resources. There is a definite need for "Ideagoras" - marktetplace for ideas, fuelled by the global brain power.

This book can be skipped by techies who generally keep themselves updated with tech happenings and have an account with facebook/twitter/second life, etc. They already understand this all, most likely. But it would help all to think about ideagoras for the world.