Hey All,

I wanted to beef up the book review with a little historical perspective on the authors.  This way, you not only learn about the one fragment of their careers, but also why you can trust their information and opinions when it comes to the topic of online media, communications, et cetera.  I figured this component to the review would be valuable - I know I find it refreshing when I open the dust cover and find out the author has been working diligently in the field relevant to the book, rather than hunting squirrel or formulating a new pancake recipe for the past 15 years...

First, Don Tapscott.  Here is some serious reputation folks.  Since 1984, Don has been authoring books about the relationships of business, communications, the new mediums we use to manage the flow on information between the two, and how those mediums affect all the overlapping contexts.  You can find a bibliography of his works at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Tapscott, as well as a truncated biography.

Don has been consulting, managing, speaking and writing about these contexts for 25 years now.  He’s essentially a Marshall McLuhan for the new media paradigm. Beginning with his book Planning for Integrated Office Systems: A Strategic Approach, Don has been considering what ramifications our supposedly “upgraded” systems will-have and do-have on our work and personal environments.  His opinion is tempered by vast years of experience, both directly and theoretically. I’d recommend checking out this video of his speaking about Wikinomics.

The other author is Anthony D. Williams.  Anthony is currently the research director of New Paradigm,which is now (The nGenera Innovation Network) a think tank  dedicated to delivering "leading-edge executive-membership research, peer-to-peer collaboration and education" (I couldn’t find much content about nGenera in my research due to login privileges at their site – if you have any content, please comment it in.)  His previous work includes some time at Digital 4Sight where he led a global team to research the affects of digital mediums and transparency as related to “revolutionizing business and redefining the corporation’s role in society” [quote from: http://webnet.oecd.org/CommServerPers/blogs/participativeweb/archive/2007/09/30/anthony-d-williams.aspx]. 

You can read Anthony’s  thoughts regarding a whole slew of online contexts and new business paradigms on his blog at http://anthonydwilliams.com/.