Charles Leadbeater - The Age of Collaboration
727 views · Published 27 November 2008 · 5:44 · Indexed 20 September 2026
Channel: London Business Forum · 2008 · Education
Charles Leadbeater became a bestselling author thanks to the help of several thousand readers. How? By publishing the first draft of his book, We-think, online, making it available for free, and inviting all-comers to get involved in the editing process. As a result of this mass-collaboration, he saved himself a lot of time, effort and money (the collaborators worked for free). He also injected a lot more quality into the text, keeping it as fresh as possible until the moment it was printed, and won himself a hardcore constituency of readers who would go on to sell extra copies of the final copy by referral. "There's this immense sense of frustration after you have written a book that you always want to go back and correct things and add things," Leadbeater told the London Business Forum at the Lewis Media Centre. "But now I realise it is completely futile, that actually books should be evolving, that they shouldn't ever be fixed, at least not books like mine that are about contemporary issues and current affairs." Of course, the truth is that Leadbeater couldn't have written We-think in any other way. Its essential message is that mass-collaboration, facilitated by the Internet, is the future of not only publishing but every industry. The Internet allows us to "be organised without having an organisation," he said, "and this creates new possibilities."... London Business Forum offers a programme of fun and insightful events. Presented by some of the world’s most inspired and inspiring people, our events provide a burst of fresh thinking without taking you out of the office for too long. Website: https://www.londonbusinessforum.com/ Follow London Business Forum on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LBFEvents Like London Business Forum on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/londonbusinessforum Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/londonbusinessforum
