Machine, Platform, Crowd Harnessing The Digital Revolution

Description: We live in strange times. A machine plays the strategy game Go better than any human; upstarts like Apple and Google destroy industry stalwarts such as Nokia; ideas from the crowd are repeatedly more innovative than those from corporate research laboratories. Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson know what it takes to master this digital-powered shift: we must rethink the integration of minds and machines, of products and platforms, and of the core and the crowd. The balance now favours the second element of the pair, with massive implications for how we run our companies and live our lives. McAfee and Brynjolfsson deliver a penetrating analysis of a new world and a toolkit for thriving in it. For start-ups and established businesses or for anyone interested in the future, Machine, Platform, Crowd is essential reading.

Review: The authors aptly illustrate how the extraordinary progress of technology is reshaping our lives, and they share powerful ideas relevant to world leaders. Nobody knows exactly how this future will unfold. What we do know is that the disruptive power of technology must be seized as an opportunity to design our future. The book compels us to ponder: will we apply technology to help accelerate development, improve living standards, and foster inclusive growth? Will we take advantage of its power to cut red tape, invest in education, unleash entrepreneurial energy, and create new kinds of jobs? The book is a must-read for policymakers who seek a road map for how to combine the strengths of humanity and technology to build a better future for their citizens.--Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund





Author Biography: Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at the MIT Center for Digital Business and the author of Enterprise 2.0. He is a cofounder of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy, along with Erik Brynjolfsson. He and Brynjolfsson are the only people named to both the Thinkers 50 list of the world's top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics. Erik Brynjolfsson is the director of the MIT Center for Digital Business and one of the most cited scholars in information systems and economics. He is a cofounder of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy, along with Andrew McAfee. He and McAfee are the only people named to both the Thinkers 50 list of the world's top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics.