As I was reading this week’s book, Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, I was struck by how much the Web is changing and how quickly that change is occurring. I have already incorporated some of the changes into my life, and some of them I learned for the first time – like b-net and TakingITGlobal.
As I have been reading this book and the other books for the course, I have been contemplating not just the changes on the Web, but how the online changes are impacting our offline lives. Our entire economic structure will probably change as a result of the innovations afforded by the Web’s dynamic, read/write capabilities, and companies that don’t embrace the change – or at least use it – will fall victim to its power.
According to Tapscott and Williams, IBM, once a bastion of intellectual secrets and closed operations, has adopted the open-source method of collaborating to create products of value, and that shift astounds me.
In addition to economic change, our idea of how to educate may also change. Just look at what MIT has done by providing OpenCourseWare. (Wikinomics, Pg. 23) Who can conceptualize where an educational structure without boundaries will take humanity?
Since the Web’s changes (and the trickle down changes to society) are still happening, how would a person – or community of people – set about establishing a Bill of Rights? Would the Bill protect individuals, companies, the Web, or any combination of them? How broad and general would it have to be to apply without discriminating?
It’s true that a great deal of my personal information is available on the Web, and based on long-held beliefs about “rights” to privacy, I want to think my information is being protected.
What if my perceived need for privacy or protection of that information is akin to the IBM or Goldcorp of old that sought closed societies? Isn’t it possible that, like corporations, individuals could benefit from personal information being openly available?
I know it seems absolutely unthinkable, but so much of our, now, ordinary life was unthinkable only a few years ago.
Great post–incredible insights. Amazing how you tied this all together. I knew I’d love reading your blog!
Great question you are aksing about individuals benefiting from sharing personal information. I was hoping that Wikonomics addressed it a bit more, but it did not. I guess we are befiting when we use Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc. We spend a lot of time on these pages, and of course some of it is entertainment but it is also about e-friendship, networking and gathering information and knowledge.
Hey Rosie:
Interesting question you ask about “isn’t it possible…individuals could benefit from personal information being openly available…” You commented last week on my blog about being “found” so easily and becoming so transparent through SEARCH. You said it was exciting and intimidating at the same time. I agree. It is easy for a lot of people to get all worried about the loss of ‘privacy’ in this digital-search age, but once you start to accept the fact that, in a sense, we are all becoming public people, it can be a bit exciting. People with a lot to hide are gonna’ have a tuff’ time though. Some might say we all have things to hide, and maybe so, but with transparency also comes a bit more openness and – in many cases – true communication. It is going to be interesting to see a lot of people come out of their shells as their lives get more and more open online. I guess we all get to be celebrities in our own niches!
Good insight, I feel that nessesity is the mother of all, and the invisible hand that guides societies and movements. Just like this country’s Bill of Rights, the web’s will be dictated initially by the infringement of its participants rights, and the catalyst that will ignite the community to identify and establish its perceived rights will, as always be intolerance, or in a more practical application for this context “control of imformation”………
Rosie,
Nicely done. If and when people start debating privacy rights on the internet, it will get very sticky. Privacy, at least in the US, is based on a “reasonable expectation.” Do you remember Garrett’s story about the new associate at Skadden Arps that had too much to drink, jumped in the East River during a holiday party and got drudged out by the Police? How could she possibly have a reasonable expectation of privacy when she pulls a stunt like this in front of hundreds of colleagues and clients in a city of 14 million people with one of the most aggressive news corps in the world?
I’m with you. She takes her lumps. She lives with the fact that people will talk about it, tell friends and use it as an example of what not to do.
What a Dummy – and no fault of the Internet.
Lil