overview
new or old?
size & shape
globalisation
law
the state
innovation
volatility
B2C
B2B
M-commerce
content industries
voodoo
dot com books
resources
|
dot com books
This page looks at the 'dot com'
literature - tales of how the author made a squillion by
going online or why it's all a red blur and you should herd
the staff
into the 'bricks-&-mortar' and blow up the building.
no business like e-business
Publishing books about the new economy has been one of the
most profitable parts of the old economy, rivalled only by
lectures and guest appearances by the digital gurus.
Reading those books we're struck by the mixture of snake oil, irrelevance,
stupidity and occasional sparks of great insight. Red
Herring magazine recently described Harvard Business
School Press as one of the leading publishers of fiction. Sadly,
the same can be said of major journals such as the Harvard
Business Journal and the Australian Financial
Review.
They are, of course, in good company, considering that in
September 2000 Sydney University's Business School
launched its Distinguished Speaker Series with a lecture
by convicted crook Mike Milken. (The lecture was part
sponsored by Investors Weekly and the School's Finance
Discipline arm).
Guides to the new economy are appearing at the rate of
roughly two per week and, judging by figures in Publishers
Weekly continue to be profitable.
We question whether the market is reaching exhaustion, as
digital euphoria wears off and competition among the
pundits for buzzwords and magic acronyms reaches ever more
ludicrous extremes. e(b)=M(C)2 for example translates as
business to business equals management change times
courage.
Memoirs by by leading dot com businessmen - and
hagiographies by their fans - haven't of course kept pace,
unsurprisingly as many startups crash and burn.
is it being used?
Is anyone reading the literature, as distinct from hoping
that the lessons will be absorbed by osmosis?
The answer's unclear. Some studies in the US suggest that
like self-help books, consumers stop short of actually
reading: it's enough to buy the precious volume.
Others indicate that a generation of clean-cut MBAs is
gleefully trying to apply the lessons of Blur, Blown
To Bits, MetaCapitalism, New Rules For The
New Economy and other primers. Contact with government
agencies such as the National Office for the Information
Economy suggest that some texts have achieved the status
of dogma.
a survey of the literature
We've compiled an annotated list of the best and the worst
of the dot com books. It's not definitive. We'll be adding
new items in coming weeks.
The annotations are independent and at times irreverent.
We point to some works of significant value for readers in
Australian business and government. And we question the
practicality of several gurus. Volumes about online
business that don't cite a single URL in the course of 200
pages, or that encourage individual insurgency within
large corporations, lack credibility.
The survey has the following parts
primers
- examinations of e-commerce principles and practices
customisation
- writing about CRM and the market-of-one
case
studies - works that explore specific industries or
activities
memoirs
and biographies
background
studies of the overall economy
next page (resources)
|
