"The Digital Economy" - A McGraw-Hill Publication

The Digital Economy ANNIVERSARY EDITION: Rethinking Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence

By Don Tapscott

With a new foreword by Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google

ISBN: 9780071835558

Price: $38.95 CDN

When Don Tapscott wrote The Digital Economy in 1994-95, The Digital Age was in its infancy. The pioneering Netscape Web browser 1.0 was in beta, websites didn’t do transactions, we all used dial-up modems, and smartphones didn’t exist. Google, YouTube, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter wouldn’t appear for many years.

Yet Tapscott’s analysis, raising issues such as networked business models, the impact of technology on privacy, the inevitable demand for corporate transparency, and the influence of new media on successive generations, deftly captured the many opportunities and challenges that lay in store for society. His pioneering term “digital economy” is now ubiquitous.

The Digital Economy is still a solid primer to understanding the impact of digital technology. In this 20thAnniversary Edition, Tapscott reflects on what has occurred since 1995 and how we arrived where we are. Even with 20-20 hindsight, most analysts fail to understand what the past two decades have meant.

In THE DIGITAL ECONOMY, Anniversary Edition: Rethinking Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence (October, 2014; HC, $38.95), Tapscott offers fresh commentary on today’s ever-accelerating digital churn, and how we can all prepare for the next wave of innovation.

As with all disruptive platforms and social revolutions, networked intelligence destroys as it creates, writes Tapscott. “Technology is also the foundation of new species of businesses that are capable of wiping out entire industries. Digital Conglomerates such as Google are achieving leadership roles in a dozen industries, where they do a better job with a fraction of the employees. Excess Capacity Networks like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb hold the power to wipe out jobs in industries ranging from taxis to hotels. Data Frackers like Facebook are acquiring vast treasure troves of data that position them to dominate multiple industries.”

In this new edition, he also covers:

· Frictions between present-day Industrial Capitalism and the Digital Economy
· The radical effects of the Internet on the traditional corporate structure
· Social media’s dramatic influence on business collaboration and culture
· Government transparency, citizen empowerment, and the creation of public value
· How digital content and collaboration is overhauling teaching and learning.

In an era where information has the ability to transform society, corporations, business, media, and learning, Tapscott still believes we all have the power to control the flow, and even shut it off if necessary. “Adopt a values statement for yourself and your family, and constantly revise it as the world and conditions change.Harness the power of new technologies and transparency for the good; design them, rather than having them control you.”


About the Author:
Don is one of the world’s leading authorities on innovation, media, and the economic and social impact of technology and advises business and government leaders around the world. He has authored or co-authored 15 widely read books including Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet; the 1992 bestsellerParadigm Shift; and most recently Radical Openness: Four Unexpected Principles for Success. The 20thAnniversary Edition of Don’s hit The Digital Economy contains 12 new essays addressing the original topics of the book. His book Wikinomics was the best selling management book in the United States in 2007.

Over 30 years Don has introduced many seminal concepts that are part of contemporary understanding. Don recently collaborated with Thinkers50 and the Rotman School of Management to create the groundbreakingDon Tapscott App -- an interactive tool that explores Don’s thinking in a number of key areas.

In 2013, Thinkers50 awarded Don the Global Solutions Award for launching and leading the Global Solution Networks program at the Martin Prosperity Institute. This program is investigating how the digital revolution enables new models of global problem solving, cooperation and governance. Thinkers50, the definitive list of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world, listed Don as the 4th most influential management thinker alive. In 2011, Don was 9th on the list. In 2012, Don opened TEDGlobal in Edinburgh where his talk, 4 Principles for the Open World, was viewed by more than a million people online.

He is an Adjunct Professor of Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and the inaugural fellow at the Martin Prosperity Institute. In 2013, Don was appointed as the Chancellor of Trent University. He also plays a Hammond B3 organ in the band Men in Suits that has raised millions of dollars for worthy charities.

You can read more about his CV, experience, and background at http://dontapscott.com where there are links to Tapscott’s work in many of the world’s most important publications, radio and television networks.