Weapons of Mass Collaboration

Even before the net age barged in with all its might and gusto the concept of "six degrees of seperation" was a prevalent thought! It says that everyone of us is no more than 6 individual away from each other! So this implies

1. World is just 6 ppl wide!
2. I am just 6 people away from all influential who's who of the world (that should be such a reassuring thing, divine gift for a person who is looking out for BIG favors :) )
3. Any company is just 6 people away from all their customers
4. I am at max 6 ppl away from my soul mate, so on and so forth...
   

The concept according to me reflects the potential of all the collaborative efforts we are experiencing today. Its the potent force over which the collaborative tech wave has been riding. The collaborative techwave has been happening, churning, taking shape, moulding and remoulding the virtual biz environment. This wave has actually made a big dent in many areas like eComm, socializing, marketing etc. and thus bending a few traditional existing rules and creating new ones. A few have termed the force as 'Wikinomics' - the theory and practice of harnessing the power of mass collaboration and a few even call it the 'weapons of mass collaboration' and 'corwdsourcing'. There are umpteenth example today a few we all know and a few might be lesser (and many new are coming up with brighter ideas) known but all of them are riding on the same wave. GNU, Linux, Wikipedia, Google, youtube, SmartMobs, innocentive, Human Genome Project, Second Life, MySpace, Blogosphere etc are all the successful manifestations of the same thought!

More on 'WMC' in my next blog...