Don Tapscott Quotes

Institutions are becoming naked, and if you're going to be naked … fitness is no longer optional. If you're going to be naked, you better get buff.

When I noticed how my own children were effortlessly able to use all this sophisticated technology, at first I thought, 'My children are prodigies!' But then I noticed all their friends were like them, so that was a bad theory.

Knowledge is exploding, so you need to commit yourself to a plan for lifelong learning.

You think that social media is about hooking up online? For these kids [in the Tunisian Revolution], it was a military tool to defend unarmed people from murderers.

Your network is your filter.

Collaboration is important not just because it's a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy.

These kids [of the current generation] have no fear of technology ... sort of like I have no fear of a refrigerator.

Holding back technology to reserve business models is like allowing blacksmiths to veto the internal combustion engine in order to protect their horseshoes.

Industrial capitalism brought representative democracy, but with a weak public mandate and inert citizenry. The digital age offers a new democracy based on public deliberation and active citizenship.

In one sense, the Internet is like the discovery of the printing press, only it's very different. The printing press gave us access to recorded knowledge. The Internet gives us access, not just to knowledge, but to the intelligence contained in people's crania, access to the intelligence of people on a global basis.

Leaders of institutions everywhere have lost trust. The global economy is stalled and the world is deeply divided, too unequal, unstable and unsustainable.

To me, this is not an information age. It's an age of networked intelligence, it's an age of vast promise.

Wherever you are, design your life. Live the values of your generation.

Schools should be places to learn, not to teach.

The social world is transforming the way we create wealth, work, learn, play, raise our children, and probably the way we think.

To be successful in a knowledge economy firms need to create learning organizations.

All one needs is a computer, a network connection, and a bright spark of initiative and creativity to join the economy.

Just as the Internet drops transaction and collaboration costs in business and government, it also drops the cost of dissent, of rebellion, and even insurrection.

We are at a punctuation point in human history where the Industrial Age and institutions have finally come to their logical conclusion. They have essentially run out of gas.

The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved.

Leadership is happening, but it's not coming from the leaders of the old institutions. Everywhere you look, you see these extraordinary, sparkling new initiatives that are under way.

Business cannot succeed in a world that is failing.

The blanket assertion that corporations are people obfuscates the complex issues at play in the changing business world. Corporation are institutions. People are people.

Peering succeeds because it leverages self-organization—a style of production that works more effectively than hierarchical management for certain tasks.

There's a whole generation of young people who are faced with the so-called 'jobless recovery.' Necessity is the mother of invention. They are out there, all around the world, creating new companies.

Throughout the 20th century, we created wealth through vertically integrated corporations. Now, we create wealth through networks. We are at a turning point in human history, where the industrial age has finally run out of gas.

If you work for and eventually lead a company, understand that companies have multiple stakeholders including employees, customers, business partners and the communities within which they operate.

Those who grew up digital have different brains.

The university is in danger of losing its monopoly, and for good reason. The most visible threat are the new online courses, many of them free, with some of the best professors in their respective fields.

In an age where everything and everyone is linked through networks of glass and air, no one - no business, organization, government agency, country - is an island. We need to do right by all our stakeholders, and that's how you create value for shareholders. And one thing is for sure - no organization can succeed in a world that is failing.

Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge; the internet is.

Don’t have work-life balance - at least in the sense of trying to escape from work so you can have a life. Work should be fun - so make work enjoyable and satisfying for everyone - among other reasons because it pays off.