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Here Comes Everybody

The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

By Clay Shirky

(44)

| Others | 9780143114949

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Book Description

A revelatory examination of how the wildfirelike spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects-for good and for ill A handful of kite hobbyists scattered aroundContinue

A revelatory examination of how the wildfirelike spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects-for good and for ill A handful of kite hobbyists scattered around the world find each other online and collaborate on the most radical improvement in kite design in decades. A midwestern professor of Middle Eastern history starts a blog after 9/11 that becomes essential reading for journalists covering the Iraq war. Activists use the Internet and e-mail to bring offensive comments made by Trent Lott and Don Imus to a wide public and hound them from their positions. A few people find that a world-class online encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers and open for editing by anyone, a wiki, is not an impractical idea. Jihadi groups trade inspiration and instruction and showcase terrorist atrocities to the world, entirely online. A wide group of unrelated people swarms to a Web site about the theft of a cell phone and ultimately goads the New York City police to take action, leading to the culprit's arrest. With accelerating velocity, our age's new technologies of social networking are evolving, and evolving us, into new groups doing new things in new ways, and old and new groups alike doing the old things better and more easily. You don't have to have a MySpace page to know that the times they are a changin'. Hierarchical structures that exist to manage the work of groups are seeing their raisons d'tre swiftly eroded by the rising technological tide. Business models are being destroyed, transformed, born at dizzying speeds, and the larger social impact is profound. One of the culture's wisest observers of the transformational power of the new forms of tech-enabled social interaction is Clay Shirky, and Here Comes Everybody is his marvelous reckoning with the ramifications of all this on what we do and who we are. Like Lawrence Lessig on the effect of new technology on regimes of cultural creation, Shirky's assessment of the impact of new technology on the nature and use of groups is marvelously broad minded, lucid, and penetrating; it integrates the views of a number of other thinkers across a broad range of disciplines with his own pioneering work to provide a holistic framework for understanding the opportunities and the threats to the existing order that these new, spontaneous networks of social interaction represent. Wikinomics, yes, but also wikigovernment, wikiculture, wikievery imaginable interest group, including the far from savory. A revolution in social organization has commenced, and Clay Shirky is its brilliant chronicler.

Critics

  • Can the Internet save the book?

    (With additional questions from James Mustich, editor in chief of the Barnes & Noble Review). According to media columnist Michael Wolff, the name Clay Shirky is "now uttered in technology circles with the kind of reverence with which left-wingers us ... (read full critics)

    salon published on Wed, 15 Sep 2010

6 Reviews

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  • Digital networks change the way we connect and organize.

    Digital networks change the way we connect and organize. I ran into this one at the local library (computer section??), so I read it in Dutch. There were many parts I liked, but I did not make notes this time. For instance:
    every professional, …, has a tendency to believe that what started as a so ... (continue)

    Digital networks change the way we connect and organize. I ran into this one at the local library (computer section??), so I read it in Dutch. There were many parts I liked, but I did not make notes this time. For instance:
    every professional, …, has a tendency to believe that what started as a solution to a temporal problem is equal to a law of nature; Where our communication changes, society changes; There is no recipe for the successful use of social technologies. Each system is a mix of social and technological factors.

    Read this book, e.g. if you want an insight on why your group is (not) working: the fact that you can easily create a group (e.g. Linkedin) does not make it a group which will last. Common purpose, mix of roles, a quantity of at least one 1,000, … and give it a year to try out. Interesting publication. Find Shirky on Ted as well.

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    Jw van Eck said on Aug 18, 2011 | Add your feedback

  • A beautiful mind

    Clay Shirky gets the Internet. He gets it better than pretty much any other commentator out there. This may be his best book, explaining the hows and the whys of humans suddenly getting way better at group behaviour.

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    Alberto Cottica said on May 23, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

  • An interesting overview of how the online world has been changed by social tools like wikipedia. It offers also many examples of how those tools interact with the "real world", dispelling -if it were necessary- the media-induced idea that "cyberspace" and everyday life don't mix.
    It is a good r ... (continue)

    An interesting overview of how the online world has been changed by social tools like wikipedia. It offers also many examples of how those tools interact with the "real world", dispelling -if it were necessary- the media-induced idea that "cyberspace" and everyday life don't mix.
    It is a good read for those that want to discover the realities of social tools and social software and also interesting for those that are already familiar with these things as it offers a way of thinking about those from different perspectives.

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    Carlo said on Aug 19, 2009 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

  • The best book about the internet. Must read for anybody active in this field.

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    alper said on Mar 31, 2009 | Add your feedback

  • This book is one of the first attempts at a comprehensive look at the new forms of social interaction both on and off line.
    Don't think Facebook, think "How a bunch of unknown people managed to get a stranger's stolen cell phone back".

    Clay Shirky is not an original writer, but he has a g ... (continue)

    This book is one of the first attempts at a comprehensive look at the new forms of social interaction both on and off line.
    Don't think Facebook, think "How a bunch of unknown people managed to get a stranger's stolen cell phone back".

    Clay Shirky is not an original writer, but he has a gift for clear explanation.

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    Halfadrop said on Jul 7, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

  • A very good overview of the incredible transformation that social interaction is undergoing. Discussing many technological tools for social interaction (mainly web and mobile phone-based), the author explains how the amateurization of many professions, together with the low transaction costs of co-o ... (continue)

    A very good overview of the incredible transformation that social interaction is undergoing. Discussing many technological tools for social interaction (mainly web and mobile phone-based), the author explains how the amateurization of many professions, together with the low transaction costs of co-operation are changing our lives.

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    Alegarg said on May 5, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

  • Rating:
    (44)
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  • English Books
  • Others 352 Pages
  • ISBN-10: 0143114948
  • ISBN-13: 9780143114949
  • Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
  • Pub date: Feb 24, 2009
  • Dimensions: 1297 mm x 871 mm x 161 mm Just how big is that?
  • Also available as: Hardcover and eBook
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