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More Than a Million Invited to Write and Edit First Collaborative Book on Management Best Practices
Pearson to Participate in New Publishing Model In Conjunction With Wharton,
MIT and Shared Insights
We Are Smarter Than Me Set for Publication in Fall 2007
UPPER SADDLE RIVER, N.J., PHILADELPHIA, and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 16
/PRNewswire/ -- Taking a page from Wikipedia(R), publishing giant Pearson,
under its Wharton School Publishing imprint, has embarked on a new book
publishing project with two innovative collaborators that could involve
thousands, if not tens of thousands of authors and editors.
Starting this week, more than a million business professionals and
scholars, including faculty, students, alumni, and newsletter recipients
from two of the nation's most prestigious graduate schools of business, the
MIT Sloan School of Management and the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania, will receive messages inviting them to collectively write and
edit the book, tentatively titled We Are Smarter Than Me
(http://www.wearesmarter.org).
Pearson, MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence, and the SEI Center
for Advanced Studies in Management of the Wharton School of the University
of Pennsylvania will collaborate to produce the first community-driven
"networked" book on business best practices.
The book's content will examine how Web 2.0 technologies such as social
networks, wikis and blogs can benefit the business enterprise.
Additionally, MIT and Wharton will also have access to the contributions,
and expect to conduct and publish primary research on whether collective
projects like this can help guide the future of industry in the areas of
customer service, product innovation, market research, and sales.
Contributing authors will be asked to provide real examples of
companies that are trying to harness the power of communities. We Are
Smarter Than Me will then explore why certain approaches have worked while
others did not, and suggest best practices for companies to follow to make
more effective use of collaboration. The book will encourage contributors
to offer their thoughts on such areas as community-based market research,
selling items on eBay or other similar sites, and raising capital via the
Internet on peer sites like Prosper.
In his 2005 book, The Wisdom of Crowds, New Yorker columnist James
Surowiecki explored the idea that large groups of people working together
can be "smarter" than an elite few. They are sometimes better at solving
problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting
the future. Building on that idea in two respects, We Are Smarter Than Me
will look to large groups of people to contribute their writings on the
subject of how community is impacting business functions that are currently
performed by separate companies, industries, and experts.
Already, more than a thousand contributors have initiated the project
by registering at the We Are Smarter Than Me website. This "networked" book
collaboration will allow all registered members of the community to edit,
add, and delete content from the website. Shared Insights(TM) US, LLC, a
Woburn, MA-based company that provides multi-channel community and social
networking for enterprises, will facilitate the collective publishing
venture using wiki technology and Web 2.0 tools.
A draft of the We Are Smarter Than Me manuscript, and the book authors'
key findings, will be presented at Community 2.0, a conference scheduled
for March 2007 in Las Vegas. In the fall of 2007, We Are Smarter Than Me is
expected to be published in book form by Pearson's Wharton School
Publishing, even as the online community continues to create and update new
content for the book on the website. All contributors will be credited.
"Like Wikipedia, and with core contributors initially comprised of many
of the world's leading business thinkers, We Are Smarter Than Me may usher
in a new model for how book publishers can acquire, create and market their
content, as well as how their books can be distributed and used," said
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and member of We Are Smarter Than Me's
Board of Advisors. "I look forward to reading this work in progress."
"This initiative will mark the first time that a major book publisher
enables thousands of people to collectively contribute to today's body of
business knowledge," said Jon Spector, vice dean of Executive Education at
the Wharton School. "Through this exciting process, they can all help to
create the management best practices of tomorrow and a vibrant community as
well."
"I believe the movement toward more decentralized decision-making in
business will, in the long run, be as important a change for business as
the democracy movement was for governments," said Thomas Malone, MIT's
Director of the Center for Collective Intelligence, author of the
influential book The Future of Work, and chair of the Advisory Board for
the We Are Smarter Than Me project. "Like Wikipedia, Google(TM), and
others, this project has the potential to connect people and computers so
that collectively they act more intelligently than any individual, group,
or computer has ever done before."
"Today's businesses, to ensure their continued success and growth, need
to learn to leverage the power of 'community,'" said Barry Libert, chief
executive officer, Shared Insights. "A few books have been written on this
subject, but none, paradoxically, have been written by more than one
person."
"Today's business readers are bombarded with many new ideas," said
Jerry Wind, the Lauder Professor; professor of Marketing at the Wharton
School and co-editor of Wharton School Publishing and one of the creators
of the We Are Smarter Than Me initiative. "We are helping to cut through
the clutter with ideas that are rigorous, timely, easily implemented, and
most importantly, are the collective wisdom of an unlimited number of
possible contributors."
About the Wharton School and the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in
Management
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized
around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline
and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first
collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600
undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in
its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more
than 80,000 worldwide. http://www.whartonsp.com.
The Wharton School's SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, the
first "think tank" for the future of management education, is dedicated to
understanding the unfolding global business environment and the education
demanded to meet its challenges. The Center sponsors research to identify
drivers of change, the forces that will shape the corporation and the
requirements for future success. The Center has disseminated its results
through publishing and translated its insights into curricular innovations
on many levels, from MBAs to senior executives. Overall, the Center helps
students and executives prepare today for future success in a rapidly
changing world. http://mktg-sun.wharton.upenn.edu/SEI/index.htm
About MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence
The MIT Sloan School of Management, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
is one of the world's leading business schools -- conducting cutting-edge
research and providing management education to top students from more than
60 countries. The School is part of MIT's rich intellectual tradition of
education and research. The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management
is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and to
generate ideas that advance management practice.
About Wharton School Publishing and Pearson Education
Wharton School Publishing is dedicated to presenting the world's
foremost business thinkers in print, audio and interactive formats. All
titles must be approved by a senior Wharton faculty review board to ensure
that they are timely, important, conceptually sound, empirically based, and
implementable. The editorial focus on applicable knowledge, along with
multi-media publishing, enables readers to gain new insights into the
issues shaping the future of business, and plan and take action to achieve
their goals. Wharton School Publishing is a partnership between Pearson
Education, the world's leading education company, and the Wharton School of
the University of Pennsylvania.
Educating 100 million people worldwide, Pearson Education
(http://www.pearsoned.com) is the global leader in educational publishing,
providing research-based print and digital programs to help students of all
ages learn at their own pace, in their own way. The company is home to such
renowned publishing brands as Pearson Prentice Hall, Pearson Addison
Wesley, Pearson Longman, Pearson Allyn & Bacon, Pearson Benjamin Cummings,
Pearson Custom Publishing, and others. Pearson Education is part of Pearson
(NYSE: PSO), the international media company. In addition to Pearson
Education, Pearson's primary operations include the Financial Times Group
and the Penguin Group.
About Shared Insights
Shared Insights (http://www.sharedinsights.com), headquartered in
Woburn, MA, is a leading provider of community education, management and
ongoing services. Shared Insights' goal is to improve business processes
including product innovation, customer self-service and marketing and sales
effectiveness. Founded in 2003, the company delivers customer communities
and education to leading companies including: WebEx, Deloitte,
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle and Adobe.
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