The power of community 2.0
Did you ever feel that every pieces of your footstep in your life at a point in time may at least lead you to a wiser and bigger meaning of something? well I maybe one of those who thinks that way. I see that mailing list and my reading during the last two weeks lead me to to start understanding how collaborative working can rule the new competition.
I’ve been reading this cool book for about two weeks from the first day I bought it at a bookstore in Bandung. Oh yeah, I forget. Anyway, the book is entitled Wikinomics. Pretty eye catching for an impulse book reader like me by just looking at the cover. Though I read its Indonesian translated version, the message is pretty clear and delivered nicely. It’s a pity that I’m in the middle of my peak time to finalize some stuff for the end of January.
Authored by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, the book is promising a new look of how information society revolutionizes. It’s not food company vs food company anymore. It’s not also rivalry between two competing value chains. It’s way bigger than that. What happened now is global competition. I’m not talking global in a “multinational” or “enterprise-wide” sense, but global in the sense that all people are powered by the new version of the little e- (e-business, e-commerce, e-money, e-banking) to enhance new innovation, new product and even bigger, a new paradigm. Collaboration, seems to be the most looked up buzzword to define how people are now enabled to create a new kind of working style, dumping self and license protected product and services.Whole range of collaborations now exist to demonstrate the capability of shared-working: blogs, wikis, peering, open source application, and to my knowledge, mailing list.
In Indonesia, the wave of collaboration is also moving on. I realize the going by looking how community media is having its evolution. From 20 mailing list I have been joining so far, at least now I’m part of some mailing lists that serve for certain domain of knowledge. One community/mailing list, KOM-TEK, stands for KOMputer TEKnologi, is an Indonesian -based mailing list dedicating for improving the member skill. It is a place where few humble and IS experienced people are dedicating themselves for the development of Indonesia human resources, especially in ERP and other enterprise application. They hold ranges of free ERP trainings given that internet connection is available. As a result, now more people are coming that are competitive for ERP human resources market after they graduate from the training.
Another mailing list, IPOM-APICS are opening opportunity for those who are interested in industrial engineering and its related field. The mailing list is associated with APICS (a non profit organization that offers three internationally recognized professional certification programs:CPIM – Certified in Production and Inventory Management, CFPIM – Certified Fellow in Production and Inventory Management, and CSCP – Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. Since its formation, the mailing list has been able to provide its member access to knowledge in operation management.
Having read this, I guess it’s not impossible to create new innovation from this community controlled area. And that’s what I call the power of community.