Cambridge Business Association
The Naked Corporation
Book

The Naked Corporation

How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business

Don Tapscott and David Ticoll
Free Press, 2003
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Authors Don Tapscott and David Ticoll examine the managerial implications of the age of transparency. Now that the Internet has enabled employees, suppliers, consumers, gadflies, critics and casual lookers to get and swap previously confidential information about companies, the business environment will never be its old self again. Companies have no confidentiality, no privacy and no way to dodge the truth. Those with nowhere to hide must get accustomed to life in the open. It’s not so bad. But to prosper in this wide-open world, managers need to understand that the new way of life has different demands than the old one. Although many of this book’s recommendations have become fairly well known, getAbstract.com finds plenty of insights that remain fresh and worth reading.

Summary

Transparency Drivers

Today’s “Age of Transparency” has brought about many changes. The most important factors pushing for transparency are:

  • Technology, especially news media and the Internet - New telecommunications technologies have created an expectation that anything that happens anywhere must be instantly, completely knowable everywhere. Although much of broadcast and cable news is shallow and strongly biased, the Internet provides a multitude of voices. In fact, the Web, blogs, e-mail, mobile phones, handheld devices, wireless communicators, and the like put everyone and everything in the virtual public square. These technologies have an unprecedented ability to empower individuals and groups. Consider the remarkable success of the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. Using the Internet, protesters spread the word, rallied their troops and demonstrated effectively. The numbers of protesters was impressive, however, it would be incorrect to say that they really communicated anything except chaos. So many different agendas converged on Seattle that the general public could not understand what the protestors really wanted, and the protesters...

About the Authors

Don Tapscott and David Ticoll are longtime collaborators, and the authors of Digital Capital and Blueprint to the Digital Economy. They have written for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and Forbes.

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