Sharing is the easiest method of group undertaking, creating a communally available resource. Three levels of group undertaking: sharing, cooperation, and collective action, are outlined early on in the book, a great deal of Shirky’s discussion revolves around these examples. Shirky discusses several organisational theories to explain how non-institutional organisation is possible online. It was this combination of a motivated public, unprecedented social abilities, and the degradation of the institutional form that provided the foundation on which the organizational shift was able to occur. As these social tools provide a non-institutional platform for group organisation, they simultaneously destroy the previous advantages of institutions. Social tools do not generate the desire to organise, they simply provide an alternative platform upon which social desires can be attained. Technologies that aid in group effort have been widely adopted due to an innate desire in humans to socialise and work together. It may be tempting to simply ascribe the shift from institutional organisation to non-institutional organisation to the invention of social technologies, however as Shirky points out, this perspective overlooks two crucial factors that allowed the shift to occur: motivation and competition. Through his (2008) overview of the impact of digital media technologies on group organisation, Shirky discusses what made this conceptual and societal shift possible, and what the shift has changed. The wide-scale adoption of digital media technologies over the last decade has not only expanded the scope of what non-institutional groups can do, but has rewritten the very concepts of ‘group’ and ‘organisation’.

The purpose of this short text is to summarize and discuss the key terms and themes of Shirky’s book. On the most basic level Here Comes Everybody is about the impact new digital media technologies have had on the organization, maintenance, and power of groups. Since the 2008 publication of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without organisations, the book has enjoyed commercial and critical success.

Shirky here comes everybody