We Are Smarter Than Me, by Barry Libert & Jon Spector

The book We Are Smarter Than Me is the first product from the website initiative with the same name.  The folks at Wharton School Publishing launched the We Are Smarter Than Me website project last year and invited everyone the world to participate in community development of a business book.

Although the community effort played a role, this particular book was primarily written by Barry Libert and Jon Spector.  Writing a book via wiki is pretty challenging given all the coordination efforts required, not to mention the various egos that undoubtedly get in the way.  Developing this book "the old fashioned way" while sprinkling in plenty of community perspective sidebars was the right formula for We Are Smarter Than Me.

This book is a very quick and enjoyable read.  You could almost think of it as a Cliff's Notes version of Don Tapscott's Wikinomics.  In fact, Tapscott wrote the Foreword for We Are Smarter Than Me.  You'll definitely find more in-depth coverage of the various community tools and platforms in Wikinomics though, so if find yourself craving more after reading We Are Smarter Than Me you should definitely read Wikinomics as well.

Libert and Spector provide an excellent overview of communities, social networking, the wisdom of crowds and much more, all packed into a book that's barely 150 pages long.  If you're looking for an easy way to get street smart on the world of communities you can't go wrong with this one.  I'm also looking forward to reading the next book from this community initiative which is currently at the case studies stage.