Component Database Systems (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) Review

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Component Database Systems (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) ReviewThe book covers almost every aspect of the component database systems. It is especially helpful to someone who wants to explore this new technology. It would be great if more details are provided in some chapters. Overall, this book worth much more than its price.Component Database Systems (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) Overview
Component Database Systems is a collection of invited chapters by the researchers making the most influential contributions in the database industry's trend toward componentization
This book represents the sometimes-divergent, sometimes-convergent approaches taken by leading database vendors as they seek to establish commercially viable componentization strategies. Together, these contributions form the first book devoted entirely to the technical and architectural design of component-based database systems. In addition to detailing the current state of their research, the authors also take up many of the issues affecting the likely future directions of component databases.
If you have a stake in the evolution of any of today's leading database systems, this book will make fascinating reading. It will also help prepare you for the technology that is likely to become widely available over the next several years.* Is comprised of contributions from the field's most highly respected researchers, including key figures at IBM, Oracle, Informix, Microsoft, and POET.* Represents the entire spectrum of approaches taken by leading software companies working on DBMS componentization strategies.* Covers component-focused architectures, methods for hooking components into an overall system, and support for component development.* Examines the component technologies that are most valuable to Web-based and multimedia databases.* Presents a thorough classification and overview of component database systems.

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Design Knowing and Learning: Cognition in Design Education Review

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Design Knowing and Learning: Cognition in Design Education ReviewThis book contains papers presented at a design education conference at Georgia Tech. This collection of articles are written by renowned authors from different design (engineering, computer science, cognitive psy., arch., etc.) disciplines. As a PhD student in design, I found many articles are well-written and useful for design research. It covers a wide range of topics (experimental methods for design studies, protocol analysis, design thinking, design expertise, design cognition, etc.) The book is on the expensive side but that is the only con in my opinion.Design Knowing and Learning: Cognition in Design Education OverviewWide aspects of a university education address design: the conceptualization, planning and implementation of man-made artifacts. All areas of engineering, parts of computer science and of course architecture and industrial design all claim to teach design. Yet the education of design tends ot follow tacit practices, without explicit assumptions, goals and processes.
This book is premised on the belief that design education based on a cognitive science approach can lead to significant improvements in the effectiveness of university design courses and to the future capabilities of practicing designers. This applies to all professional areas of design. The book grew out of publications and a workshop focusing on design education. This volume attempts to outline a framework upon which new efforts in design education might be based.
The book includes chapters dealing with six broad aspects of the study of design education: • Methodologies for undertaking studies of design learning • Longitudinal assessment of design learning • Methods and cases for assessing beginners, experts and special populations • Studies of important component processes • Structure of design knowledge • Design cognition in the classroom

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Disruptive Business Review

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Disruptive Business ReviewThis is the second book I have read from Alex Manu which sets the bar even higher than his previous book The Imagination Challenge. Alex challenges the convenional notion of innovation and provides an entirely new definition. In his book he systematically helps you rethink what you know about innovation and offers new models connecting desire and behaviour and how that is at the heart of creating a disruptive business. Too many of us focus on "the" disruptive technology but this is only a means to an end. The disruption comes from the behaviour and Disruptive Business will help you deconstruct this so you can apply it to your business, products, or services.
I paid the full price for this book before Amazon discounted it and have already gotten enormous value. No regrets. If you need to rethink your business or products or services I highly recommend this book, it will help you change your perspective a precondition for change. Disruptive BusinessDisruptive Business Overview"Disruptive Business" is a provocative and insightful redefinition of innovation as an outcome of human behaviour, a dynamic in constant change requiring the shaping of new responses in business and the economy. Alexander Manu believes that organizations must treat innovation not as a process to be managed but as an outcome that changes people's lives. In "Disruptive Business" he explains how innovation is the moment when human behaviour is changed by a particular invention, discovery or event. This position challenges the current understanding of innovation, as well as the current ecology in which innovation operates in organizations: its management, methods, tools, language, focus and metrics. The challenge extends to some of the labels currently applied to innovation typologies, such as 'disruptive innovation', seen today as addressing purely the technological side of an invention, rather than the more complex motivational and behavioural side. Alexander Manu considers that a disruption is not manifest in the moment a new technology is introduced.The disruption is the human being and manifest only when human motivation embraces the technology and uses it to modify and improve everyday life. Our acceptance and appropriation of new technologies creates the business disruption. Manu makes the case that successful innovation outcomes are answers to conscious or subconscious goals residing in human motivation, and motivation starts in desire. This position is consistent with the history of innovations that have changed, improved and reshaped human life, and also consistent with their roots and ethos. Humans are a 'perpetually wanting animal', bound to desire, to seek media for a better self and to need innovation. In this dynamic, innovation is the constant and business is the variable. The role of business is to create the tools, objects and services through which people can manifest what they want and who they are. The book provides a new perspective of current behavioural disruptions which are relevant to the continuity of business, as well as a set of practical methodologies for business design, aimed at creating innovation outcomes of value to users.

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The Effective CIO: How to Achieve Outstanding Success through Strategic Alignment, Financial Management, and IT Governance Review

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The Effective CIO: How to Achieve Outstanding Success through Strategic Alignment, Financial Management, and IT Governance ReviewToo often, technical virtuosi believe their skill entitles them to a seat in the executive suite. But both companies and chief information officers (CIOs) benefit when CIOs have finance and project-management chops in addition to technical knowledge. Information technology experts Eric J. Brown and William A. Yarberry Jr. explain why IT "governance" is necessary and why IT systems must match corporate strategy. Their discussion of the contribution of IT due diligence to the success of mergers and acquisitions is particularly valuable, since the failure to do such research dooms many M&As. They offer good advice on how to choose which functions to outsource, how to select vendors and what to look for in consultants. Whether you are a current or aspiring CIO, getAbstract suggests that you use this terrific handbook to learn how you can make a strong business contribution through technology. One note: Although Brown and Yarberry's work is certainly accessible to a general business audience, their focus on IT with its accompanying jargon may make their guide somewhat tough going for those outside its target audience.The Effective CIO: How to Achieve Outstanding Success through Strategic Alignment, Financial Management, and IT Governance OverviewIn a business world of uncertain budgets, relentless technology changes, scarce management talent, and intense production demands, theory is good, but practice sells. The Effective CIO: How to Achieve Outstanding Success through Strategic Alignment, Financial Management, and IT Governanceis all about practice, successfully delivering the nuts-and-bolts for effective governance execution. It helps to dissolve the negative image many CIOs have as remote, purely rational decision machines, while demonstrating how to improve quality and throughput in your business.This authoritative text includes governance checklists, sample IT controls, merger and acquisition recommendations, and a detailed framework for IT policies. Authored by two highly regarded IT management experts, the book provides not only a survey of existing strategies, but also includes detailed problem-solving ideas, such as how to structure optimal IT and telecom contracts with suppliers, the implications of SOP-98, and accounting for software costs. The book seamlessly brings together two perspectives - that of a working CIO who must cope with day-to-day pressures for results, and that of an IT audit consultant with a special focus on governance and internal control. Unlike many other CIO-related books that merely discuss strategies, The Effective CIO includes easy-to-follow guidelines and governance principles that can be implemented immediately.

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ROI of Social Media: How to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment Review

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ROI of Social Media: How to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment ReviewI have been doing a lot of research on social media and how businesses can use it to sell more products and services. This book provides a reality check that is most helpful. Instead of dabbling with social media, this book provides the techniques to get serious about social media and where an organization is in its social media journey. There is so much out on the blogs and website articles about social media that it is overwhelming. I run into people constantly giving me their two cents about the trends and what is hot in social media and it is confusing. If you are at all confused or feel uncertain where to start with social media then I would start with this book.
The book provides techniques such as the media engagement framework. The MEF provides the context as to where to get your arms around using social media within your organization from the perspective of personas down to how to measure each persona (influencers, consumers, individuals) and the way to appropriately reach them with the best return instead of grabbing the coolest thing on the market.
The entire subject of ROI is often a half baked attempt to provide enough cause to do something. In other words, ROI is not real as it is based on possibilities or intangibles. Real ROI is based on hard dollars not soft dollars. I applaud the authors for taking the position of defining ROI specific to social media with how to approaches. As a marketer and not a finance person, I appreciate the business mechanics of generating the ROI rather than a lot of financial calculations that would leave me trying to figure out how to apply social media to the calculations. The book does a fantastic job of applying ROI as would be expected by the title and it lives up to that title.
Other aspects of the book are the web links to current articles and findings on the web. There are case studies, tools to use, and side bar definitions that make the book a very useful guide. I hope the authors keep the book up to date as tools and trends change, however, the frameworks and approaches will have a decent shelf-life that I would encourage anyone to read in 2011 and for the next several years.ROI of Social Media: How to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment OverviewHow to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment
This book more than adequately covers this increasingly important topic, as social media begins to take its rightful place on the center stage of not just marketing but a number of business disciplines. ROI of Social Media is an excellent analysis of the current landscape. I cannot recall any book that singularly tackles ROI at this level, most media books simply give a passing reference or chapter on ROI, this is the first comprehensive study. – Larry Weber, Founder and chairman of W2 Group, Formerly of Weber Shandwick
We know that for 2011 and the foreseeable future, ROI is one of the top priorities for the social media strategist at many companies, ROI of Social Media is the right book at the right time as social media strategist are needing to work the various department within the enterprise and show that the investments in social tactics and tools are a good investment. The 15 case studies contained in this book will help the social media strategist understand how global brands are successfully using social marketing to connect to their audience. – Jeremiah Owyang, Partner, Altimeter Group
The ROI of Social Media is a must-read for any business looking to get the most out of their investments in social marketing. It sets the stage for marketers to interact with influencers, individuals and consumers and explains the relationships between them. This book breaks down into simple terms both "dollars" and "sense" for social marketers to live by. Fundamentals, strategies and tactics …this book has it all. The ROI of Social Media will be the dog-eared book that sits on the corner of your desk used to prove many a point. – John Lovett, Senior Partner & Principal Consultant, Web Analytics Demystified
Analytics are the core to a consistently successful marketing program. This book offers the metrics to manage social marketing programs, to measure their success, to diagnose underperforming elements, and to deliver extraordinary results. Kudos to this team of marketers in putting this essential book together. – Professor JC Larreche, InSEAD, Author of The Momentum Effect

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Enterprise Architecture: Creating Value by Informed Governance (The Enterprise Engineering Series) Review

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Enterprise Architecture: Creating Value by Informed Governance (The Enterprise Engineering Series) ReviewAfter reading Architecture Principles and Enterprise Architecture at Work I decided I would also read this book and Enterprise Governance and Enterprise Engineering as well. I am starting Enterprise Governance and Enterprise Engineering now. This series is great!!! I recommend every Enterprise Architect buy the series.
This book was the first of the series. It is only 145 pages long, but it is packed full of valuable information.
This book puts Enterprise Architecture into context. It gives a complete picture of Enterprise Architecture.
It starts with a great chapter on why Enterprise Architecture is needed and then has chapters on Positioning Enterprise Architecture, The Results of Enterprise Architecting, The Process of Enterprise Architecting, and The Enterprise Architect.
One of my favorite parts of the book is the description the book gives to the Enterprise Architect role. Anyone looking to hire or become an Enterprise Architect should read this chapter. It covers basic job descriptions, competencies (e.g. dedication, authenticity, integrity, negotiation, openness, stability, etc.), responsibilities, and personality types.
One of the things I didn't like about the book is that there is no index. This seems to be the case for the smaller Springer book, so I can't ding the authors for that.
This is a well rounded introduction to Enterprise Architecture. It covers all the basics in depth and also provides a really nice example to show you the results of Enterprise Architecting.
All in all I highly recommend this book for anyone involved in anyway with Enterprise Architecture. It will provide you a clear picture of what it involves.

Enterprise Architecture: Creating Value by Informed Governance (The Enterprise Engineering Series) OverviewTwenty years after the first publications and books on enterprise architecture, the domain is evolving from a technology-driven towards a more business-driven approach, thus empowering decision makers to adapt and transform an enterprise in order to keep up with changing business needs. At the same time the discipline of enterprise architecting has matured, leading to a better understanding of the profession of an enterprise architect.With this book, the authors aim to provide an overview of enterprise architecture including the process of creating, applying and maintaining it, thus taking into account the perspectives of CxOs, business managers, enterprise architects, solution architects, designers and engineers. They explore the results that are produced as part of an enterprise architecture, the process by which these are produced, and the role the architect plays in this process. As such, they do not describe a specific method for developing an enterprise (IT) architecture, nor do they define a specific modeling language for enterprise architecture, rather they offer the reader a fundamental way of thinking about enterprise architecture, which will enable him to select and apply the right approach, architecture framework and tools that meet the objective and context of the architecture work at hand. This approach is emphasized by discussion statements at the end of each chapter, sparking thoughts about benefits, shortcomings, and future research directions.Covering both theoretical foundations and practical use, and written in close collaboration between industry professionals and academic lecturers, Enterprise Architecture thus offers an ideal introduction for students in areas like business information systems or management science, as well as guidance and background for professionals seeking a more thorough understanding of their field of work.

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Total Access Review

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Total Access ReviewWhile I'm not one for too many business books, I took the recommendation of a respected friend and read the book.
I wear two hats in a web development and multimedia production company; owner and sales. The content of Total Access satisfied both brains. We provide our clients with communication tools that are focused at internal and external audiences. I found myself head nodding and matching many of our company and client experiences to concepts discussed in the book. The book helped me recognize (and hopefully capitalize on) patterns that we see occurring with our clients.
Regis may not see the future (cause it's already happening), but he may be the first reporting on it. I'd recommend Total Access if you are able to "apply" valuable insight and knowledge to your business life. Stick with Tom Peters if you just like to read.Total Access OverviewMarketing as we know it is disappearing, declares industry legend Regis McKenna.As marketers focus on advertising and promotion, the chief information officer is automating their core functions. As they obsess over brand, the chief strategy officer is dispersing their responsibilities throughout the organization. And as they squabble over whether marketing is an art or a science, McKenna argues that they're completely overlooking what marketing has become: a technology. What does this displacement mean for the future of marketing and its role in today's increasingly networked organizations? Who will manage the all-important customer relationship-and how? In this bold new book, McKenna marshals over forty years of experience as a marketing innovator, investor, and industry visionary to explore an emerging-and essentially different-marketing paradigm. In this unconventional model, says McKenna, computers and the network do most of the work, from data gathering to customer care and response. The marketing function disappears into a network of relationships and responsibilities between man and machine throughout the value chain.Total consumer access to-and interaction with-the marketplace replaces the archaic broadcast model. For marketers, the end goal changes from creating brand awareness to satisfying customers. And brand itself becomes a"persistent presence" which sustains the customer dialogue however and whenever the customer chooses. McKenna argues that marketers must shed their marginal role as image creators and take on the brave new role of managing this new infrastructure. They must learn to operate with one foot in marketing and one foot in information systems-integrating the people and technological tools necessary to deliver value and novelty to every customer anytime, all the time. Competitive advantage will come from engaging the entire business in this total access network-making marketing a mission-critical, enterprise-wide responsibility. A rousing manifesto by a renowned pioneer of high-tech marketing, Total Access will remake marketing and redefine success in our networked world. AUTHORBIO: Regis McKenna is Chairman of The McKenna Group in Palo Alto, California.He has worked with more than 300 start-ups, including Apple and Intel, and is the bestselling author of Real Time (HBS Press, 1997).

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The New HR Analytics: Predicting the Economic Value of Your Company's Human Capital Investments Review

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The New HR Analytics: Predicting the Economic Value of Your Company's Human Capital Investments ReviewDr. Jac continues to set the standard for how to measure HR activities. This book exends his previous work in useful and innovative ways. He has the unique ability to take broad and complex issues like HR metrics and put them into simple and useful frameworks and actions. His work shows that human capital issues are direclty relevant to business success. And, when we quantify the impact of human capital, HR can help businesses grow in the right way.
Well done!!!The New HR Analytics: Predicting the Economic Value of Your Company's Human Capital Investments OverviewIn his landmark book, "The ROI of Human Capital", Jac Fitz-enz presented a system of powerful metrics for quantifying the contributions of individual employees to a company's bottom line. "The New HR Analytics" is another such quantum leap, revealing how to predict the value of future human capital investments. Using Fitz-enz's proprietary analytic model, readers learn how to measure and evaluate past and current returns. By combining those results with focused business intelligence and applying the exclusive analytical tools in the book. Brimming with real world examples and input from thirty top HR practitioners and thought leaders, this groundbreaking book ushers in a new era in human resources and human capital management.

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Fearless Leadership: How to Overcome Behavioral Blindspots and Transform Your Organization Review

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Fearless Leadership: How to Overcome Behavioral Blindspots and Transform Your Organization ReviewHow well is your team adjusting to the new reality that exists locally and globally? Given the economic crisis we have all endured, our pathways to success have changed dramatically. After you determine your new pathway, you will have to focus on needed transformation. FEARLESS LEADERSHIP provides a number of unique, experience-based concepts and initiatives that can help leaders like you transform their teams, their companies, and themselves.
The author, Loretta Malandro, identifies 10 common blind spots that derail leaders by diminishing teammate trust, which can seriously undermine business results and inhibit meaningful change. FEARLESS LEADERSHIP also provides methods for leaders to diagnose their personal blind spots, which are invisible to them and clearly visible to their teammates, peers and competitors.
FEARLESS LEADERSHIP can help you become a more courageous leader by guiding you through LEADERSHIP EXPLORATION (i.e., ways to identify your negative leadership elements) and providing ideas for LEADERSHIP ACTION (i.e., effective initiatives designed to overcome identified leadership problems).
Increase your courage, transform your company, and become the kind of new leader that we need in this New World.Fearless Leadership: How to Overcome Behavioral Blindspots and Transform Your Organization Overview
Do you want to move your company in a new direction? Fearless Leadership provides you with the tools to successfully drive change, overcome obstacles, and engage and align people in working effectively together to achieve your business objectives.

Leadership guru Dr. Loretta Malandro has developed a groundbreaking behavior-based methodology that is used around the globe to create top-performing leaders and high-performance organizations. It is based on a simple but profound concept: In order to change your organization, you must be willing to alter your behavior and help others make the choice to change their behavior. This means demanding 100% accountability from your people--and yourself.

In today's ultra-competitive business environment, a new leadership approach is needed. Fearless Leadership takes you step by step through the process of raising behavioral standards that directly impact the bottom line. You will learn the secrets behind:
Confronting the blind spots that sabotage success
Overcoming the success-strangling "need to be right"
Eliminating silo mentality and building committed partnerships
Ending compliance and gaining full support and alignment
Talking straight and confronting difficult situations head on
Building a culture of 100% accountability

Too many people in leadership positions attempt to enact change through systemic means, such as restructuring or altering processes. The secret to real and lasting change lies in changing behavior--how people work together. Change the level of ownership and performance of people and you will transform your organization.

Leaders who are able to act courageously when faced with uncertainty or fear, take bold stands, and engage with people in very real ways are those who generate great and long-lasting results. Fearless Leadership shows you how.


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Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies) Review

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Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies) ReviewProfessor Cusumano's "Staying Power" is a major contribution in the field of business strategy.
I am in the business of technology and management strategy consulting and think his ideas have enormous value to any executive grappling with the implications and opportunities of cloud-computing enabled business. His six principles are easy to grasp. They are deceptively simple and are particularly powerful in a commercial and public sector business climate of austerity where new business models are emerging that will fuel our next growth cycle, but are disrupting incumbents. The introduction of cloud computing is beginning to have a disruptive effect on a wide range of business. Living through that disruption in day-to-day business can make it hard to see the bigger patterns at play and think through what the future state will look like. Professor Cusumano's elaboration of the platform/complementer services model with his excellent historical context and current market analysis makes it much clearer where we are headed in my industry and to seize emerging opportunities.
I purchased the book based on an Amazon recommendation and I am very grateful I did. The book is written in a more academic style than is typical of the more popular style business and management books. In fact, I picked it up and sat it down several times before committing to the book. It is not a book designed to skim. It requires concentration and focus to understand how Professor Cusumano has reached the conclusions he has. His ability to characterize the current disruptive innovation cycle in the information technology business using his analysis of the history of both the information technology and automotive industry is excellent. It is a fascinating story leading up to today's new business models.
Once I started really focusing on the book, I could not put it down. My copy is full of highlighter pen marks and 3M stickers. Kudos to Professor Cusumano for a valuable tool for business executives trying to figure out how to proactively take advantage of the cloud-enabled business models that are emerging. I hope that he extends this work with additional video and supplementary blog or presentation materials to continue to expand on his ideas and share more examples of the ideas in action. I have already begun converting his ideas into execution in my business.Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies) OverviewBusiness news tends to focus on the travails of a handful of giants: Apple's iPad, the Toyota recall, the controversy over Google's book-digitization program. Whatever the day's headlines, though, most of these firms have been there before--up and down, written off and overpraised--yet they endured and triumphed. What is their secret? What is it that has lifted them to preeminence and allowed them to come out of each crisis stronger than before?In Staying Power, Michael A. Cusumano provides the answers. A bestselling business author and leading scholar, Cusumano has spent a quarter of a century studying the world's most successful companies--many of them from the inside, by serving as an advisor to more than one hundred firms. He identifies six critical principles that have driven the success of today's foremost companies, including Google, Intel, Apple, JVC, Toyota, and Microsoft. He argues that companies today must develop distinctive organizational capabilities, not just business strategies; focus on platforms and services, not just products; pull information from the market, responding to real-time changes in demand and competitive conditions, and not just push products out; achieve economies of scope, not just scale, by creating efficiencies across all a firm's activities; and acquire flexibility, in addition to efficiency, to quickly adapt to a volatile marketplace. Drawing on real-life examples, he illustrates how the best companies put these principles into practice, identifying precisely how these ideas have lead to concrete success time after time.Business books, the author notes, often promote short-lived fads in management thinking. But Staying Power is different. Written by a bestselling international expert, this book focuses on lasting success, analyzing the fundamental elements common to the leading competitors in the world today.

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The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value With Customers Review

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The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value With Customers ReviewThe future is here. Competition is getting tougher and customers are more difficult to please. On the other hand everything is connected, objects are embedded with sensors and software and information flows instantly to all corners of the world , thanks to the communications revolution. This book essentially looks at a networked world where customers and companies are inseparable and are constantly in interaction. In this paradigm, the framework of DART - Dialogue, Access, Risk Assessment and Transparency is introduced and the book proceeds to explain each of these in detail.
The word Co-creation will get included in your daily vocabulary sooner than you expect. Lots of diagrams and case studies are thrown into every chapter. But frankly, there is no concept that is radically different from some of the pioneering works on similar topics already published. To list a few :
-Customer.Com by Particia Seybold
-How to Grow when Markets Don't by Adrian Slywotzky
-The Innovator's solution by Clayton Christensen
-Adapt or Die : Turning your Supply Chain into an Adaptive Business Network by Bob Betts , Claus Heinrich
-Experimentation Matters: Unlocking the Potential of New Technologies for Innovation by Stephen Thomke
-Priceless: Turning Ordinary Products into Extraordinary Experiences by Diana Lasalle, Terry A. Britton
-The Agenda: What Every Business must do to Dominate the Decade by Michael Hammer
Most of the case studies in this book are repetitions from these or are similar in concepts or processes in creating value for ( or along with) the customer. The authors have duly acknowledged and referred to an elaborate list of books and articles under "Aids to Exploration". But my point is that after going through some of the key works listed above, this book fails to impress on originality.
Towards the end of the book, Knowledge Management is brought in as one of the strategic tools that can be integrated into the co-creation framework.
It is certainly interesting to go through the book though it is a combination of old ideas in a new packaging. Young MBAs will find lots of new jargon that can be put to profitable use in job interviews.The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value With Customers Overview

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Information Systems for Managers: Texts and Cases Review

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Information Systems for Managers: Texts and Cases ReviewI must admit, I was a skeptic. I NEVER thought anything about "IT" (which I now know to be "IS"...) would be interesting to me, but this book proved me wrong. Simply put, it is well-written with clear examples of the theories and frameworks it introduces as well as great business cases that can be used for discussion. More than just providing a clear lesson in IS, this book was engaging and enjoyable to read.
In the end, I feel better educated about a subject that will no doubt be vital to successful managers in the future. Studying this subject and reading this book was definitely time well spent.Information Systems for Managers: Texts and Cases OverviewInformation Systems for Managers is a text for managerial/MBA students intended to actively engage them in discussions and activities around information systems and information technology. Piccoli has interwoven many real-world examples into the text that show students how IS will effect their futures in management positions. Each chapter starts off with a mini-case to get the student's attention, build excitement, and foster interactive discussions. A plethora of unique, full-length cases are also composed within the text to hold student's attention and show them how IS and IT are of great interest to them as managers.

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IT Portfolio Management: Unlocking the Business Value of Technology Review

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IT Portfolio Management: Unlocking the Business Value of Technology ReviewThere is absolutely no doubt that all enterprises, small or large, are completely reliant technology to operate. Companies have aggressively built and deployed IT solutions. My experience has been that most executives kind of treat this as a black box. They understand that there are major benefits to deploying various IT solutions (and they are right), but they don't really understand the how and the why. This is where this book comes in. I think that it is essential reading for executives, particularly those who are not strong in IT. Executives need to really understand the hard issues related to managing their IT portfolio -- how should they manage their IT portfolios. This book provides an excellent road map. It will show you how to evaluate your IT portfolio in a concise and easy-to-read manner. I'm big into charts and checklists and this book provides them. With a bewildering array of IT options and the difficult task of sorting and prioritizing, this book will serve as an essential guide.IT Portfolio Management: Unlocking the Business Value of Technology Overview

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How Companies Win: Profiting from Demand-Driven Business Models No Matter What Business You're In Review

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How Companies Win: Profiting from Demand-Driven Business Models No Matter What Business You're In ReviewHow Companies Win by Rick Kash and David Calhoun is recommended reading for executives facing the need to grow revenues in a sluggish economy. Kash and Calhoun provide a comprehensive discussion of what is going on -- namely the shift from a world driven by your supply chain to one driven by a new demand chain. The demand driven world described by Kash and Calhoun explains why and how companies need to change their approach to win in the future.
Just about every company's strategy is based on the idea that demand is greater than supply and all that they have to do is be better than the competition and the money will flow. Kash and Calhoun make a strong argument that the economy has shifted with more supply than demand. This simple shift changes the whole basis for enterprise strategy, marketing strategies, products and services. The impact of this change and how leaders are using this reality to their benefit is the subject of the book.
While the book is targeted primarily at Marketing Professionals, I recommend this book for executives looking to understand how to move forward and capture the markets that matter. Line executives will gain an understanding of the importance of addressing different market segments. Technology professionals will appreciate the role that information plays in defining the demand driven enterprise. Others will find the author's arguments providing an interesting view on what is going on in a world where traditional notions of strategy and competitive advantage are under threat.Strengths
The book is clear and comprehensive. The authors describe the process for creating a demand driven strategy and plans work. The results they achieve and sample deliverables. This discussion provides a clear view on the concepts they present and how they might apply to your company.
The book contains detailed discussions and case studies of leading companies like Best Buy, Hershey's, P&G and others. The cases cover both the decisions facing executives as well as the results they achieved. While case studies are common in business books the time, detailed and coverage are a strength of the book.
The book tackles complex issues that other actors assume away. I have read very few books that talk about issues like pricing, operational precision, etc. These discussions are helpful in taking a broader look at issues related to creating and demand driven organization.
The book considers the entire enterprise and its response to a demand driven world. The need to create a demand chain, new forms of marketing, the need for precision and operational excellence are all great points that make this a book that goes well beyond describing new ways of marketing.
The book is focused on providing a business based explanation of the challenge facing companies and its impact on top and bottom line revenue. While the book does advocate a set of techniques for becoming a demand driven organization, it never loses sight of the need to drive business results.
Challenges
The authors come from a Marketing background and the techniques in the book are marketing centric. However, the issues raised living in a demand driven world go beyond revising your marketing strategy. The authors know this and look to address the points in latter chapters, but there is room for additional material and insight into the operational, execution and other issues involved in becoming a demand driven organization.
The authors are consultants who have applied their tools with leading companies across multiple industries. At times, the book drifts into branding which detracts from the message. It does not happen often, but when it does its noticeable.
The consumer products and food industry are among the first to experience the reality of excess supply and therefore they represent many of the case examples. While the authors acknowledge business to business commerce, it is not the focus of the book. that does not mean that the concepts do not apply in business to business. It just means that the reader will have to work a little bit to apply these concepts to this situation.
Overall, this book uses a different view of the relationship between demand and supply to create new forms of strategy, new ways of looking at customers and markets, and new ways to execute in a tough business environment.
In a world that has changed we all need new ideas and new tools. Kash and Calhoun provide executives with the ideas they need to answer the question, where we go from hereHow Companies Win: Profiting from Demand-Driven Business Models No Matter What Business You're In Overview
For the past twenty years, the growth formula for business has been to increase revenues by expanding product offerings and streamlining supply. But with the recent global recession, the world economy has changed forever. Now the old tools-most notably supply-chain management-are no longer enough. In a new digital age characterized by over-supply and too many product types in almost every market, the new challenge is to locate and capture the elusive pools of high-profit demand.

Rick Kash and David Calhoun have the answer: a revolutionary, demand-driven model that has already proved successful for some of the world's most admired companies, including Best Buy, Anheuser-Busch, Hershey's, and Allstate. At the heart of this powerful new business model is an achievable vision for a new kind of winning company, one that uses sophisticated new tools and techniques to discover, characterize, and then serve these pools of high-profit demand-and in the process gain pricing power in that market. Kash and Calhoun show how to use everything from social networks to more revealing and effective consumer-research techniques and then introduce the demand chain, the logical new partner to your supply chain. The authors' principles, case histories, and insights will help your business run faster, cut costs, and become better able to deliver high-quality products and services, even in the tightest economic climate.

How Companies Win is a compelling call to action to engage every level within a company, small or large, local or global.


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Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Review

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Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation ReviewTim Brown has had an amazing career working at the premier design firm in the country, IDEO. This book in part recounts stories of various clients they have worked for, and in part lays out a vision for how design can be more human centric. He discusses using these approaches for everything ranging from industrial design to social engineering.
Although the stories about the various clients are interesting, I found the book to be so high level that it was hard to take away practical steps. I would have found the book more valuable if instead of keeping the discussion at the very highest level (brainstorming is good, need to control the chaos, design goes through phases, etc) it would take some of the principles discussed and look at specifics -- here is a specific client interaction where we did x, y, z. Here is why we did it. Here is what happened. Here is a specific failure case. Here is what we learned.
Without it, although the book covers a lot of interesting case studies, it doesn't do so in a way in which I felt that I have knowledge of things to do differently in my day to day creative activities within my company, or ways in which I could interact with clients better.Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation OverviewThe myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities. This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer′s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people′s needs not only with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short‚ design thinking converts need into demand. It′s a human−centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative. Design thinking is not just applicable to so−called creative industries or people who work in the design field. It′s a methodology that has been used by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente to icnrease the quality of patient care by re−examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change‚ or Kraft to rethink supply chain management. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization‚ product‚ or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

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Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing) Review

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Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing) ReviewThere has been a veritable onslaught of strategy and business 'design' literature published in the past few years. Most of it is interesting but falls into one of two traps: either it's too theoretical to put into action, or it's directed to a choir of the design-familiar and leaves everyone else behind. Liedtka and Ogilvie break the mold with their new book, providing a framework and a tool kit to help almost anyone with interest and motivation explore the power of design thinking.
It starts with a relatively simple point. Most of the time, most of the world sees the design process as messy and unpredictable and nonlinear and twisted and terribly inefficient. In many organizations, that's why design is often considered a black box so impenetrable that it's outsourced to marketers, product developers, and, well, designers. Liedtka and Ogilvie take the mess and unbundle it all into a four-phase, 10-step framework that starts to look more like a process that individuals and organizations can learn and replicate.
While the steps are somewhat familiar, the recommended approaches in each phase sound reasonable but are more challenging for most people to put into practice. (Try explaining to a typical business planner that you're going to generate new business offerings based on research you conduct with a dozen or so customers, and you'll see what I mean.) Lucky for all of us, Designing for Growth provides concrete tools and step-by-step instructions and plenty of real-life examples for each step of the journey so that there's sufficient structure to help the reader navigate the discomfort of trying something new.
I've been fortunate enough to collaborate with Liedtka and she's fond of saying that she's not a designer, and that if she and her faculty colleagues can make good use of the Designing for Growth tools then anyone can. Having watched her in action, I'd say she's more of a designer than she'd like to admit, though perhaps not in a traditional sense. Because for me -- and as illustrated throughout Designing for Growth -- being a designer isn't about being artistic or clever or even all that creative. Being a designer is about approaching a complex problem with curiosity and empathy and patience and then having the discipline to explore many possible answers before selecting a path forward. This book helps bring out that design thinker in each of us.Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing) OverviewJeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie educate readers in one of the hottest trends in business: "design thinking," or the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for maximal business growth. Liedtka and Ogilvie cover the mind-set, techniques, and vocabulary of design thinking, unpack the mysterious connection between design and growth, and teach managers in a straightforward way how to exploit design's exciting potential. Exemplified by Apple and the success of its elegant products and cultivated by high-profile design firms such as IDEO, design thinking unlocks creative right-brain capabilities to solve a range of problems. This approach has become a necessary component of successful business practice, helping managers turn abstract concepts into everyday tools that grow business while minimizing risk. (9/7/11)

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