President Bush recently called for the US administration to dramatically curtail earmarks (essentially pet spending projects that members of Congress insert into the federal budget), saying he will veto any appropriations bills that don’t cut the number of earmarks in half when they come to him during the remainder of his days in the White [...]

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I received an email this morning that gets the prize for reader comment of the week. In Wikinomics, we referenced Isaac Newton’s “shoulders of Giants” quote to illustrate the idea that all knowledge and scientific discovery is cumulative . . . one great discovery builds on the foundation of previous discoveries, and so [...]

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It’s the first I’ve heard of a dissertation being written on mass collaboration, although I suspect there are many more out there. I have yet to read it in full, although I did note that our friend Howard Rheingold is one of the examiners. The author, Mark Elliot, points out that while Don and I [...]

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Written petitions have long been an important means by which citizens can bring their concerns to public officials. Petitioning was common in 18th and 19th century England and is thought to have played an important role in enabling working class movements to force significant social and political reforms, and eventually universal suffrage. The tradition was [...]

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One of the most intriguing books I’ve read of late is The Gift of Athena, by economic historian Joel Mokyr. Mokyr traces the rise of the industrial revolution and the important role of the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution in increasing access to knowledge in society at large. Here’s his thesis in a nutshell:

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It seems the timing of my earlier post was somewhat fortuitous as NESTA (the UK-based National Endowment for Science, Technology and Arts) has launched a £1 million contest to find the brightest ideas to fight climate change. The Big Green Challenge, as they call it, is intended to stimulate the search for “Eureka moments” for [...]

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Don and I have been ruminating over the potential to develop the equivalent of the human genome project for climate change and would like your input on the issue.
An optimist could argue that we’re in the early days of something unprecedented—thanks to the web 2.0 the entire world is beginning to collaborate around a [...]

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2007 was a great year for Wikinomics. We managed to get on a number of “best book” listings. Here’s a sample:

• The Economist – Pick of the bunch: Economics and Business
• Financial Times – The Best of 2007: Business
• The Wall Street Journal – Holiday Books 2007
• BusinessWeek – 10 Best [...]

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