MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Unconventional Innovator Who Created Wikipedia

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of homebound schoolchildren and university students have benefited from a valuable resource that most take for granted. Today, anyone with a desktop or mobile device can instantly utilize — for free — an easily searchable database that grants them “access to the sum of human knowledge” in over 300 languages. That resource is Wikipedia.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of its launch on Jan. 15, 2001, it’s worth recalling that before Wikipedia, many people had limited (if any) access to the knowledge provided by publishers such as Encyclopaedia Britannica. Even in industrialized nations such as the United States, the cost of an encyclopedia set was prohibitive for many lower-income families. The final 32-volume print edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica — which weighed 129 pounds (58.5 kilograms) — cost nearly $1,400.

About the Author

Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade are professors at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, and coauthors of ALIEN Thinking: The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas, slated for publication in March 2021.

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