Anthony D. Williams Speaks at ictQATAR's Connected Speaker Series
Doha, Qatar: Mass collaboration is forcing the world to change the way it does business and innovates, and according to Anthony D. Williams, it requires a complete rebooting of business and the world. Williams, the best-selling author of Wikinomics and Macrowikinomics, was in Doha for ictQATAR's Connected Speakers Series, where he spoke to more than 500 people about the power of mass collaboration and the emergence of a new wikiworld.
"In every corner of the globe, businesses, organizations, and individuals alike are using mass collaboration to revolutionize not only the way we work, but how we live, learn, create, and care for each other. We are altering the way our financial institutions and governments operate; how we educate our children; and how the healthcare, newspaper, and energy industries serve their customers," said Williams.
In Wikinomics, Williams and his co-author, Don Tapscott, focused on how deep changes in the nature of technology, demographics and the global economy are giving rise to a new age where people participate in the economy like never before. According to the book, these changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history --a world where only the connected will survive. Macrowikinomics illustrates how the same changes in the business world are being translated into people's personal lives and a variety of sectors including healthcare, science, media and education.
"The world is now your R&D department. You can literally source the world for innovation," said Williams. For people that want to thrive in the new, connected world, Williams highlighted five principles: collaboration, openness, sharing, integrity and interdependence. "We must now be prepared to accept extraordinary levels of sharing to address the extraordinary challenges our world faces today. We are in a time where transparency is expected and often forced, meaning integrity violations will prove ever more costly."
Williams concluded his presentation by urging the audience to embrace the principles of mass collaboration and wikinomics to help improve the world, saying that mass collaboration is the way to find the killer app that could "save the planet."
In addition to being a best-selling author, Williams is also currently a visiting fellow with the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and a senior fellow for innovation with the Lisbon Council in Brussels. Among other appointments, he is also an advisor to GovLoop, the world's largest social network for government innovators and a founding fellow of the OpenForum Academy, a global research initiative focused on understanding the impact of open standards and open source on business and society.
The Connected Speakers Series was launched in 2009 and brings global and regional thought leaders to Qatar to address some of the hottest issues in ICT and how technology is changing our lives. To date, it has addressed social media, green technology, the digital content industry and the future of the internet, with more exciting lectures being planned for 2011.
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© Press Release 2011
