AIG - Wiki in practice

The four tenets of Wikinomics are :

-Being Open
-Peering
-Sharing
-Acting Globally

Seemingly, these ideals are all positives. Openess and sharing. It's like kindergarten citizenship lessons for the Fortune 500. But the problem with them, and my problem with the book so far, is their lack of skepticism.

What if people don't want to be open, or share, or think/act globally? What if some people don't think that everyone's their peer?

Take AIG for example. Their recent bailout could be considered the application of Wikinomics on steroids. By accepting large amounts of federal funds, AIG was forced to share and be open, with their plans for rebuilding the compnay, what they did to get themselves, and the country, into the mess they're in, and about how much they were compensating their employees for the work they did.

The Obama Administration, by bailing out AIG, made every taxpayer feel as if they were the "peer" of the CEO. But instead of ushering a new era of amazing performance, everyone's mad. The public got more information than they probably needed, in finding out that rain or shine, financial markets do what they do best, pay a few people a LOT of money.

AIG execs were aghast at a public actually holding them accountable for something. And the government had to lay the mediator, in this new, open, "Wiki-ed" world.

Perhaps this example is an extreme. Actually, I know it is. But my point is this. Everything about WIkinomics isn't amazingly beautiful and palatable. And it shouldn't take 170 million dollars of bonuses to figure that out.