Clay Shirky, Author, Educator & Consultant on Social and Economic Effects of Internet Technologies, says that a new kind of digital revolution is taking hold. Networked tools are allowing groups to form and collaborate without any of the traditional friction that comes from managing the efforts of multitudes.
The source of this revolution is not the computer but the connections between them, as our social networks fuse with our technological ones. Compared to the shift to digital information, this change is more painful for some people to embrace, even to contemplate, because it challenges deeply held assumptions about how society does or should work.
We’re witnessing nothing less than the migration from an information economy based on the work of the individual mind to new forms of collective intelligence and collective effort, and it represents, for good or for bad, a fundamental change in the way our society — all modern societies, in fact — is structured.
Clay illustrates these fundamental forces at work, and how they will change the world’s organizations and, ultimately, ourselves.
