Clay has identified a major paradigm shift. It does have huge implications. I wonder what it will mean in terms of intellectual property, when ideas splatter freely across the net.

Clay Shirky’s consulting focuses on the rising usefulness of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, wireless networks, social software and open-source development. New technologies are enabling new kinds of cooperative structures to flourish as a way of getting things done in business, science, the arts and elsewhere, as an alternative to centralized and institutional structures, which he sees as self-limiting. In his writings and speeches he has argued that “a group is its own worst enemy.” His clients have included Nokia, the Library of Congress and the BBC. Shirky is an adjunct professor in New York University’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, where he teaches course named “Social Weather.”

Shirky is author of Here Comes Everybody.

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Thousands of solutions to problems that you never knew you had.  There now seems to be more solutions than there are problems to solve.  Also, problems are now becoming so complex that it has become difficult to completely understand a particular problem.  Welcome to “Solution Saturation.”

so·lu·tion -noun

1. the act of solving a problem, question, etc.: The situation is approaching solution.
2. the state of being solved: a problem capable of solution.
3. a particular instance or method of solving; an explanation or answer: The solution is as good as any other.

So what happens when solutions (and their many forms) become THE PROBLEM?  It was Einstien that said, “A scientific theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

But before you do anything, you have to define the problem without the solution in mind and not allow a solution to define the problem.

Once you have defined the problem, here are a few other commonly used heuristics, from Polya’s classic How to Solve It:

• Look to the unknown.
• If you are having difficulty understanding a problem, try drawing a picture.
• If you can’t find a solution, try assuming that you have a solution and seeing what you can derive from that (”working backward”).
• If the problem is abstract, try examining a concrete example.
• Try solving a more general problem first (the “inventor’s paradox”: the more ambitious plan may have more chances of success).

All too often, outside influences help created a distorted view of a problematic situation.  Many times, “solutions” are billed as a technology to run a business process.  First you have to develop your process.  Buying a software to run a business process that has not been defined is a detrimental drain of resources and an easy trap to fall into.

Yochai Benkler has been called “the leading intellectual of the information age.” He proposes that volunteer-based projects such as Wikipedia and Linux are the next stage of human organization and economic production.

It is hard to deny the disruption and fundamental shifts being caused by open source ideology and social web values.

A historical analogy to wikenomics is weaponry. There have been long periods of history when weaponry was more or less equal , followed by times of great weapon disparity. Think of the transitions between prehistoric society and the Bronze Age, or the development of Greco-Roman culture. Think of the difference between the Medieval times and the Renaissance. The Bronze Age saw the growth of powerful central governments over tribes. The Renaissance saw a flowering, vibrant, changing culture overturn a static system that had been in place for hundreds of years. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have seen the growth of mega-corporations and mega-governments. The change in technology of the collaborative internet threatens more than Microsoft! It has the power to transform ALL social, economic, and political relationships in the not too distant future. While it’s not possible to predict all changes, with enough thought one can make some scenarios and predictions. Want to try?..

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