Don Tapscott
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Don Tapscott is one of the world's leading authorities on innovation, media and the economic and social impact of technology. He is an internationally sought writer, consultant and speaker on business strategy and organizational transformation. His clients include top executives of many of the world's largest corporations and government leaders from many countries. Don has been named one of the 50 most influential living management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. The influential Washing Technology Report called him the most influential media authority since Marshall McLuhan.

Don has authored or co-authored 14 widely read books including the 1992 best-seller Paradigm Shift. His 1995 hit The Digital Economy changed thinking around the world about the transformational nature of the Internet and two years later he defined the Net Generation and the “digital divide” in Growing Up Digital. His 2000 work, Digital Capital, introduced seminal ideas like “the business web” and was described by BusinessWeek as “pure enlightenment.” Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything was the best-selling management book in 2007 and translated into over 25 languages. The Economist called his newest work Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World a “Schumpeter-ian story of creative destruction” and the Huffington Post said the book is “nothing less than a game plan to fix a broken world.” Over 30 years he has introduced many ground-breaking concepts that are part of contemporary understanding and language.

Don is a frequent writer for the Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Business 2.0, The Financial Times, USA Today, and BusinessWeek, and has been interviewed and quoted widely in the broadcast media including CNN, CNBC, NBC, CBS, NPR, Fox News and the BBC.

Don is Chairman of the think tank Moxie Insight and an Adjunct Professor of Management, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

Blog Entries by Don Tapscott

Living Out Loud -- Should We All Be More "Open?": Big Brother 2.0 (Part 6 of 7)

(11) Comments | Posted May 26, 2012 | 9:00 AM

The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing...

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Living Out Loud -- Should We All Be More "Open?": Corporations, the Main Beneficiaries of Personal Sharing (Part 5 of 7)

(8) Comments | Posted May 25, 2012 | 8:32 AM

The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing...

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Living Out Loud -- Should We All Be More "Open?": Real Dangers of Thoughtless Sharing (Part 4 of 7)

(6) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 8:08 AM

The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing...

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Living Out Loud -- Should We All Be More "Open?": Privacy, the Self and Human Relationships (Part 3 of 7)

(1) Comments | Posted May 23, 2012 | 8:30 AM

The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing...

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Living Out Loud -- Should We All Be More "Open?": To Share or Not to Share (Part 2 of 7)

(3) Comments | Posted May 22, 2012 | 9:11 AM

The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing...

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Living Out Loud -- Should We All Be More "Open?": The Upside of Sharing (Part 1 of 7)

(17) Comments | Posted May 21, 2012 | 8:55 AM

The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing...

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Kony 2012: Rethinking Global Problem Solving

(6) Comments | Posted March 26, 2012 | 9:21 AM

The 'Kony 2012' director who was found naked in the street will remain in the hospital for several weeks. Danica Russell, Jason Russell's wife, attributed her husband's "reactive phsychosis" to the "sudden transition from relative anonymity to worldwide attention -- both raves and ridicules, in a matter of...

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The Heartbeat of Bogotá: Engaging the Population of a City to Reinvent Itself for the Digital Age

(4) Comments | Posted January 23, 2012 | 8:30 AM

Around the world our cities are in desperate need of rejuvenation and transformation. Elected officials are scrambling to equip their cities for the 21st century, talking about creating "open," "networked," and "smart" cities.

The problems are legion. Mexico City is now one of the most dangerous cities in the world....

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20 Big Ideas for 2012, Part Four

(0) Comments | Posted January 12, 2012 | 11:40 AM

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five; one, two and three can be found here,...

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20 Big Ideas for 2012, Part Three

(0) Comments | Posted January 11, 2012 | 10:17 AM

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five; one and two can be found here and...

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20 Big Ideas for 2012, Part Two

(3) Comments | Posted January 10, 2012 | 10:05 AM

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five; read the first one here). We need to...

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20 Big Ideas for 2012, Part One

(8) Comments | Posted January 9, 2012 | 12:31 PM

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five). We need to make progress on these issues now to...

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Looking Back on My 2011 Projections

(0) Comments | Posted December 5, 2011 | 11:46 AM

One thing pundits rarely do is review their own prognostications. A year ago I published "10 Big Themes for 2011" -- related to how the digital revolution changes business and society. It's helpful to review what actually occurred. Below are my projections and some 20-20 hindsight editorializing.

1....

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Cutting Out the Banker Middleman

(12) Comments | Posted November 21, 2011 | 11:15 AM

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, we need to rethink and redesign many organizations and institutions that have previously served us well but are now beginning to falter. Fortunately, the Internet lets us do this. It slashes collaboration costs and makes possible completely new models of combining...

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Three Principles for a New Wall Street

(37) Comments | Posted October 20, 2011 | 1:07 PM

Protesters set up the "Occupy Wall Street" base camp in New York a month ago because the location epitomizes the economic forces that control the U.S. and global economies. As one sign read: "This is not a recession. It's a robbery." To many it feels like just that. The financial...

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World Economic Forum Meeting in Abu Dhabi Developing New Models for Understanding Complexity

(6) Comments | Posted October 10, 2011 | 7:27 PM

I'm enjoying participating in this week's meeting of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Councils.

The Network of Global Agenda Councils constitutes the intellectual brains trust of the World Economic Forum. This year more than 750 Global Agenda Council Members from all walks of life and from more than 80...

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In Era of Fragmentation, Public Broadcasting Is More Important Than Ever

(26) Comments | Posted August 9, 2011 | 1:41 PM

I recently attended the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is an annual gathering of the American intelligentsia and powerful to discuss global issues. I watched a session where Chrystia Freeland, a Canadian, was interviewing Bob Rubin, former Secretary of the US Treasury and now chairman of the Council on Foreign Affairs....

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Business Models for Five Industries in Crisis

(11) Comments | Posted July 11, 2011 | 10:12 PM

In our 2006 book Wikinomics, Anthony D. Williams and I looked at dozens of companies that have used the Internet to transform their business models and achieve tremendous success.

However, in the five years since the book's publication, we've noticed something striking: the rate of business model innovation has not...

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Will Youth Unemployment Demonstrations Come to America?

(187) Comments | Posted June 23, 2011 | 12:50 PM

With the youth unemployment rate in this country higher than 20 percent, we can be thankful that angry young Americans are not marching in the streets like their peers in many countries in Europe, the Middle East and north Africa. Perhaps the biggest reason that we haven't yet seen protests...

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G8 and the Internet: Sarkozy Messes With a Good Thing

(50) Comments | Posted May 27, 2011 | 1:53 PM

The irony couldn't be more obvious. After staging a piece of political theater called the E-G8, which French President Nicolas Sarkozy used as a platform to champion the notion of much tougher government control over the Internet, the president today will welcome to the analog G8 meeting in Deauville, representatives...

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