Four principles for the open world by Don Tapscott

THINK answers:

Question 1: What is Don’s term for the generation that has grown up “bathed in bits”?

Answer D. Net Generation

Question  2: When Rob McEwen’s geologists were having difficulty identifying the presence and location of the gold in his mines, what radical approach did he take?

Answer B. Released his data and held the Goldcorp Challenge

 Question 3: What does Don mean when he says we have a “burning platform” for change?

 Don said that the global crisis created a burning platform. He gave the example of Wall Street saying that the core modus operandi of Wall Street almost brought down global capitalism. According to him the idea of burning platform occurs when you are somewhere where the costs of staying where you are become greater than the costs of moving to something. People usually do not like change, but we need it and open up to all of our institutions.

Question  4: According to Don’s four meanings of openness, what is the difference between “transparency” and “sharing”?

 Transparency is about the communication of information (to stakeholders of organizations: employees, customers, business partners, shareholders…). Sharing is more about giving up assets, intellectual property for example. Don spoke about IBM, who gave away 400 million dollars of software to the Linux movement, and that gave them a multi-billion dollar payoff.

 Question 5: What happens to power structures as knowledge becomes increasingly distributed?

Answer B. Power becomes decentralized

 Question 6:  According to Don, the internet did not give rise to an information age, but instead gave rise to:

Answer E. The Age of Networked Intelligence

Question 7: Don uses an example from nature to demonstrate his four principles for openness. Which example does he choose, and in what ways does it exhibit these principles?

Don used the example of  flock of Starlings, in the area around Edinburgh, explaining  “the murmuration” function refers to the murmuring of the wings of the birds when they’re flying all together. This collective power protects the birds from predator.In this example there's leadership,but there's no one leader. This is a huge collaboration, an openness, a sharing of all kinds of information,  a sense of interdependence.  It’s show us that it is in our interest as a human being to share our knowledge, skill and experience.