If sharing information is so valuable … why do so few people do it?
A couple of years ago, I wrote briefly on the blog (and a lengthier article) about Don Tapscott’s 2006 bestseller Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (The benefits of mass collaboration), and a recent event got me thinking once again about the value of sharing information. In the book, Tapscott tells the story of how in 2000, Goldcorp’s CEO Rob McEwen bucked the trend in the conservative and highly-secretive gold mining industry and shared the company’s proprietary data with the world. As a result, he gained access to some of the most talented minds on the planet, almost all of which were outside the boundaries of his organization, and transformed his struggling $100 million company into a $9 billion mega force. McEwen had the foresight to realize that by sharing some of his closely-guarded intellectual property, he could harness the power of collective genius and capability, and thus, take his company to the cutting edge of innovation and wealth creation.
It’s now 2015, so you would expect that legions of leaders everywhere would have been motivated by McEwen’s amazing success to embrace the open sharing of information and expertise, right? Not so! Continue reading
