We are smaller than me is a good illustration of a famous phrase:united we stand divided we fall.

Indeed, "we are smarter than me" is a book written by a community of business men.This project is the joint effort of Pearson Educational Publishing, Wharton, MIT, and Shared Insights. The goal was to form a community that would write a book about how communities could change and enhance the way that companies do business.It's not a traditional book but a book written thanks to a website through blogs,podcasts,a wiki etc

I think this is pretty cool. Open source books are nothing new - there are many examples of blogs turning into books. One of my favorites is Joel on Software, a popular tech blog that became a book. There are many more examples. Publishing in installments is also nothing new - The Three Musketeers, published 1844, was originally published in serial form in the French magazine Le Siècle.


But using a wiki is a much more rare approach, and I think is starting to hint on what can happen when you combine book publishing with the power of social software. Imagine if every book you read was full of links and dynamic interludes. Or if books were more of a full media experience, with photos and videos to accompany them. Sort of a movie/audio book/novel mashup.May be this is what the future books are going to look like.