Book Review: Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom, by Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta

This is one of those publishing rarities: a book dealing with a technology subject that doesn’t really get technical. It talks about the profound impacts of technology without getting down and dirty about the nuts and bolts of it and alienating the average reader in the process.

It is also an important book. Important because it explains how a social phenomenon is rapidly becoming a societal one. It is also important because it champions openness, accountability and freedom of expression at a time when these values seem under increasing threat.

But perhaps the most appealing thing about this book is its optimism. It starts from the premise that the vast majority of people are neither lunatic nor mean and moves on from there.

This is quite an achievement for a book that deals with a subject as potentially dry as Web 2.0. In reality, of course, Web 2.0 is a very exciting and revolutionary phenomenon; it’s just that when most people write about it, they have a tendency to inadvertently discover a cure for insomnia.

The specific aspect of Web 2.0 dealt with by the authors is social networking and the impact that various sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and their hundreds of millions of users have not just on our personal lives but on society itself.

Google’s ‘Zeitgeist 2008’ showed that the most searched for term in Ireland on Google was ‘bebo’. In second place was MySpace, while Facebook was one of the fastest-rising searches. In 2008 the combined users of these networking sites equated to the entire population of the US. It is estimated that 600 million people will be logged on to social media by 2012 – Facebook alone claimed 140 million users by the end of December 2008. It is no surprise then that many commentators believe the rise of these social networks is a revolution.

The authors describe what is happening at the moment, perhaps somewhat inelegantly, as an ‘e-ruption’. They make a compelling argument that social networking and Web 2.0 represent a tipping point in society as important as the invention of the printing press and the Renaissance.

If I am in disagreement with the authors on any significant point, it is this. While I agree with the potential importance of the subject matter, it is the analogy that is hard to swallow. The printing press and the Renaissance didn’t usher in a period of openness and accountability nor did they empower anyone but the already rich and powerful. No, the parallel I would choose is the Enlightenment.

The battle described by the authors is one between horizontal networks and vertical institutions. Social networking is antithetical to traditional hierarchical power structures and there is an inevitable conflict between the two.

But power is shifting. This is not the pipe dream of a group of techno-hippies but a real phenomenon. The world is changing. The book explains how Web 2.0 is already creating new market models, enterprise organisations and democracy.

We have already seen how democracy is being impacted. The recent American presidential campaign will probably be seen as the moment when Web 2.0 went mainstream. The ultimate winner, both in the Democratic primaries and in the general election itself, was the one who embraced Web 2.0 best.

The enterprise side is possibly even more interesting than this. Web 2.0 has the potential to transform enterprises and other organisations and enable them to harness the collective intelligence of their workforces. But the corporate world looks upon it with fear and routinely bans use of social-networking sites by staff, meting out summary discipline for even minor transgressions.

But here’s where the book gets optimistic again. It argues that many forward-looking corporations are starting to embrace Web 2.0 as a means of enhancing performance and delivering real bottom-line returns.

By Ronan Harris, director of EMEA online sales and operations at Google

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN-10 0470740140