HARNESS NEW COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR COMPETITIVE GAIN
Most organizations realize that to succeed in today’s turbulent world, they need to perform as an integrated whole to tap into innovations and good ideas. Yet many still find it difficult to capture the collective intelligence of their employees and customers. Companies don’t know what they know-but they need to learn soon.
Thanks to a new class of collaborative technologies, organizations can now leverage information in valuable new ways: capturing accumulated knowledge, connecting employees who need information with the experts who have it, and enabling the best ideas to emerge organically. These technologies-labeled “Web 2.0”-first appeared on the Internet, where they powered successful social communities and collaborative platforms like Facebook and Wikipedia. Web 2.0 tools, practices, and philosophies are now being deployed by a wide range of organizations, making them more agile productive, and innovative.
Andrew McAfee, a veteran researcher and writer on the business impact of technology, and the originator of the phrase “Enterprise 2.0,” describes its power and tells listeners how to harness it. McAfee weaves together case studies, discussions of technological change, and multidisciplinary research to:
• Show how early adoptees like Google have profited from Enterprise 2.0
• Specify the benefits that arise when Web 2.0 technologies are deployed
• Reveal where the risks and roadblocks are with Enterprise 2.0
• Guide companies through an Enterprise 2.0 deployment
McAfee takes a practical look at the competitive challenges facing so many organizations today and explores how they can be met and conquered with the right combination of novel technologies and enlightened leadership.

From the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Second Machine Age, a paradigm-shifting argument “full of fascinating information and provocative insights” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)–demonstrating that we are increasing prosperity while using fewer natural resources.

Throughout history, the only way for humanity to grow was by degrading the Earth: chopping down forests, polluting the air and water, and endlessly using up resources. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the focus has been on radically changing course: reducing our consumption, tightening our belts, and learning to share and reuse. Is that argument correct?

Absolutely not. In More from Less, McAfee argues that to solve our ecological problems we should do the opposite of what a decade of conventional wisdom suggests. Rather than reduce and conserve, we should rely on the cost-consciousness built into capitalism and the streamlining miracles of technology to create a more efficient world.

America–a large, high-tech country that accounts for about 25% of the global economy–is now generally using less of most resources year after year, even as its economy and population continue to grow. What’s more, the US is polluting the air and water less, emitting fewer greenhouse gases, and replenishing endangered animal populations. And, as McAfee shows, America is not alone. Other countries are also transforming themselves in fundamental ways.

What has made this turnabout possible? One thing, primarily: the collaboration between technology and capitalism, although good governance and public awareness have also been critical. McAfee does warn of issues that haven’t been solved, like global warming, overfishing, and communities left behind as capitalism and tech progress race forward. But overall, More from Less is a revelatory and “deeply engaging” (Booklist) account of how we’ve stumbled into an unexpectedly better balance with nature–one that holds out the promise of more abundant and greener centuries ahead.