Whether it's teenagers sharing MP3 music, buyers' clubs aggregating purchasing power, or geeks developing software, the internet enables people to organize themselves with greater ease than ever before. In the digital era, self-organizing systems have enormous implications for businesses. You have to ask yourself if your customers could work together via the internet to build a competing product or service. Self-organizing human systems are as old as Homo sapiens, dating back to the development of language. Typically, no central authority controls the creation of value.
People somehow come together to collaborate and create something new.
The most spectacular example to date is Linus Torvalds, who used the web to work with volunteers to develop the Linux computer operating system. Another fascinating project is under way at an American investor web site. Instead, the stock picks will flow from individual investors who post their opinions and recommendations on the site. This is more than a few dozen people gathered around a kitchen table, or another on-line chat room for stock traders. The mutual fund developers believe that their army of amateurs will give professional money managers a run for their money for two reasons.