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We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity
Synopsis
Society is based not on mass consumption now but on mass, innovative participation - as is clear in phenomena from Wikipedia, Youtube and Craigslist to new forms of scientific research and political campaigning. This new mode of 'We-think' is reshaping the way we work, play and communicate."We-think" is about what the rise of these phenomena (not all to do with the internet) means for the way we organise ourselves - not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations. For the point of the industrial era economy was mass production for mass consumption, the formula created by Henry Ford; but these new forms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrival of a new kind of society, in which people want to be players, not spectators.This is a huge cultural shift, for in this new economy people want not services and goods, delivered to them, but tools so they can take part. In "We-think" Charles Leadbeater analyses not only these changes, but how they will affect us and how we can make the most of them.Published on: 2008-02-18
About the author
Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drawn on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning. We-think, which is due to be published in 2007, is the latest in a string of acclaimed books: Living on Thin Air, a guide to living and working in the new economy; Up the Down Escalator, an attack on the culture of public pessimism accompanying globalisation and In Search of Work, published in the 1980's, which was one of the first books to predict the rise of more flexible and networked forms of employment. In 2005 Charles was ranked by Accenture, the management consultancy, as one of the top management thinkers in the world. A past winner of the prestigious David Watt prize for journalism, Charles was profiled by the New York Times in 2004 for generating one of the best ideas of the year, the rise of the activist amateur, outlined in his report The Pro-Am Revolution.
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