Common Space [Paperback]

CommonSpace presents new opportunities for the advancement of culture, knowledge and human relations. it also translates into unprecedented opportunities for low-cost market research, brand building and widespread product acceptance. This book presents both perspectives, and provides a practical roadmap to the role of CommonSpace in any endeavour.

This book will help CEOs, managers, civic leaders and other decision-makers to understand the complex web of relations that makes up CommonSpace, and to recognise, nurture and exploit the business opportunities that it presents.

Commonspace is the collective mind of the Internet, a synergy built from the space between the bits and fuelled entirelyby people power. As the Internet grows, commonspace is changing the way we live, think, play and do business. Surmanand Wershler-Henry provide a detailed cognitive map of the emerging virtual landscape, and a set of tools that will helpreaders draw on the power of the collective.

On the Internet, traditional business logic has turned upside down...with spectacular results:

• New economy companies are building multi-billion-dollar market caps not by consolidating power, but by giving it away.
• The open source movement is changing the way we create software and formulate new ideas. As Microsoft shakes in its boots, our beliefs about economic value and work are turning inside out.
• Online communities are becoming essential components in the creation of political movements, the organization of ideas and the overall success of businesses.
• Smart, ethical dot-coms are collaborating with their customers-and even their competitors-to create services that could never have been imagined 10 years ago.

When personal need and passion mix with the benefits of community and cooperation, unparalleled momentum, new kindsof information and mind-blowing new social worlds are the result. This is commonspace.

Forget the marketing chatter and the media pundits-Surman and Wershler-Henry tell you what's really going on theNet. Insight, laughs and irreverent opinions ... this book sounds just like the Internet.

—David Weinberger, Co-author
The Cluetrain Manifesto

Commonspace is the new commonplace, the new common sense.

—Derrick de Kerckhove, Director
McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology

Mark Surman is the founder of The Commons Group, a connected think tank and consulting network focused on collaborative applications of the Internet. Spanning the globe, Mark's projects jump across organizational boundaries and build on the power of commonspace. They include everything from open source software to distributed onlinepublishing to cooperative business development. Before founding The Commons Group, Mark was the Director of Community and lead business strategist for Canada's first national Internet provider, Web Networks. He has also worked in television, film and print media.

Darren Wershler-Henry is a writer, critic, and the editor of Coach House Books, the only literary press in the world with its entire front-list online. Darren has worked as a new media consultant and researcher for several publishers and software companies, and is a founding member of the Commons Group. His other books include Internet Directory 2001 (with Scott Mitchell), The Complete Idiot's Guide to Online Shopping for Canadians (with Preston Gralla), and two books of poetry, NICHOLODEON: a book of lowerglyphs, and the tapeworm foundry.