The Digital Economy: A Guide to Understanding the Internet and its Impact on Business and Society

Don Tapscott, a renowned corporate management guru, has written a comprehensive guide to understanding the digital economy in his bestselling book "The Digital Economy". The book provides a thorough understanding of the Internet and the World Wide Web, as well as new ways of creating wealth, virtual workplaces, and the coming shakeout in computer and telecommunications. Tapscott argues that every collective human enterprise must be transformed by technology to survive the ongoing economic upheaval.

Key Takeaways:

• The digital economy is driven by the rapid advancement of information technology, which is changing the way we work and live.
• Tapscott emphasizes the need for business leaders to adapt to changing circumstances with lightning speed, citing the importance of networked intelligence in delivering health care, education, and other services.
• The workplace of the future will be in a constant state of high-energy flux, with processes and objectives reacting instantly to changing circumstances.
• Tapscott argues that corporations must invest in training employees to cope with unlimited access to information and protect the quality of their lives.
• The owners of knowledge workers' brains still have no or little ownership in the wealth they create, other than a salary and maybe a bonus plan. As their power grows, the issue of ownership of wealth will be posed.

Statistics:

• The computer power in a single greeting card can surpass the combined power of all computers on Earth in 1950.
• Most home video cameras contain a more powerful chip than an IBM system 360 computer.
• The video game processor in a Sony product has a 200 MIP (millions of instructions per second) processor, equivalent to a $3 million mainframe in the 1970s.
• Tapscott predicts that television sets will be obsolete by the turn of the century due to technological advancements.

Sources:

• Don Tapscott, The Digital Economy.
• Ann Finlayson, NOTA BENE, from The Digital Economy.
• Microsoft, strategy and product development approach.