The Next Wave of Technologies: Opportunities in Chaos Review

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(More customer reviews)The next wave of Technologies is a very rich, and up to date, source of information. Chances are the reader has already heard, read and possibly work with some of these technologies. And of course we can always search for information on the internet. But this book bundles it all together in a consistent and comprehensive way. It also provides information that one can use as a starting point to investigate further. This book will also serve as an excellent reference book.
Next to describing and explaining the technologies, the reader gets an insight on:
- when and how these technologies and concepts, evolved to there current status
- benefits, costs, risks, limitations, and challenges
- who are (current) players (form vendor- as well as user and customer side)
- role and strategies of vendors/suppliers, and customer/user expectations
- impact on organizations
- best practices, key factors, models and frameworks
- development, management and deployment
- references to specific research done, literature, articles, whitepapers etc. (can serve as point for further study)
Phil Simon has done a great job in bringing together 15 other authors and there knowledge and expertise to form this excellent bundle of information. Each author writes a chapter on his/her specific area of expertise. One of the things I like of books written by different authors, is that each chapter has a bit different writing style, which to me makes it more interesting to read. Every chapter is written with a bit different style, while still maintaining an overall general structure. Nicely done!
Each chapter ends with a summary and a `next steps' section. The `next steps' section is intended to help the reader think about steps he/she can take when considering using, or is already using, the specific technology in their organization.
The book is structured in 4 parts:
Part1 - Introduction, Background and Definitions
Part2 - Architecture, Software Development, and Frameworks
Part3 - Data, Information, and Knowledge
Part4 - Management and Deployment
Part5 - Conclusion
the chapters are:
Part-1
Ch1 - The changing Landscape of Business and Technologies
Ch2 - How the Game has changed
Ch3 - The role of IT in an Enterprise 2.0 World
Part-2
Ch4 - Cloud Computing
Ch5 - Opens Source: The War that both Sides Won
Ch6 - Software as a Service
Ch7 - Service Oriented Architecture
Ch8 - Managing Mobile Business
Ch9 - Social Networking
Part-3
Ch10 - Enterprise Searc and Retrieval
Ch11 - Enterprise 2.0 Business Inteligence
Ch12 - Master Data Management
Ch13 - Procurement in Chaos
Part-4
Ch14 - Agile Software Development
Ch15 - Enterprise Risk Management
Ch16 - Implementing Open Source Software
Ch17 - Global Engineering
Ch18 - Enterprise 2.0 IT Project Failure
Ch19 - Readying the troops for Battle
Ch20 - Sustainability and Green IT
Part-5
Ch21 - Finding Opportunity in Chaos
That's it for my review. I hope it gives an insight of what to expect from the book.
Thansk fo reading the review.
*********

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Your all-inclusive guide to all the latest technologies
Providing you with a better understanding of the latest technologies, including Cloud Computing, Software as a Service, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Open Source, Mobile Computing, Social Networking, and Business Intelligence, The Next Wave of Technologies: Opportunities from Chaos helps you know which questions to ask when considering if a specific technology is right for your organization.
Demystifies powerful but largely misunderstood technologies
Explains how each technology works
Provides key guidance on determining if a particular technology is right for your organization
Contains contributions from experts on Cloud Computing, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Software as a Service (SaaS), Open Source, Mobile Technologies, Enterprise Risk Management, Social Media, Business Intelligence, and more

More of a management text than a technical guide, the book is designed to help your organization better understand these exciting new technologies and their potential impact. The Next Wave of Technologies: Opportunities from Chaos will help you determine if your organization is ready for a specific technology, how to prepare for its successful adoption, how to measure success, and the key risks and red flags to recognize.

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The Executive's Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy: How Social Networks Are Radically Transforming Your Business (Wiley and SAS Business Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book hits the nail on the head. It covers all topics of social media clearly and concisely. As the co-creator of a social media certificate program at a state university in New York I think I will use this book as a text for my next course. Thanks for writing this!

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An actionable framework for developing and executing successful social media strategies supporting collaboration, teamwork and communication in modern corporations
Using straightforward language, this book offers real-world stories and revealing anecdotes to demonstrate how executives and business leaders develop successful corporate social media strategies.
High level guidance to developing the practical business frameworks and policies necessary for implementing and managing successful corporate social media strategies
Describes the actual processes, organizational structures, and technology platforms required to develop and execute a strategy of continuous engagement with customers, partners, and stakeholders
Provides both how-to advice as well as best practices on creating an enterprise social networking strategy
Other titles by Barlow: Partnering with the CIO: The Future of IT Sales Seen Though the Eyes of Decision Makers


An executive handbook and referencefor social media strategy planning and development, The Executive's Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy answers all the questions you have on this topic, including why every corporation needs a social media strategy and how it can be successfully leveraged to achieve business objectives.
Praise for The Executive's Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy: How Social Networks Are Radically Transforming Your Business
"This book is an ‘executive summary' of the e-social revolution, as it applies to business. Thomas and Barlow have distilled the most thrilling and life-changing technological revolution that any of us will witness in our lifetimes into a clear-eyed set of ‘nothing-but-the-facts-ma'am' data points for business managers. A great read, well worth the effort.—Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., co-authors of Rules to Break & Laws to Follow
"Forgot all the social media buzzwords! Dave and Mike cut through the social sphere hype with his practical guide helping you hone in on making social media a vital business success tool. After reading David and Mike's book, you will understand why you need to integrate your efforts in social media with your overall business objectives. Through new (not-your-everyday-Zappos-Dell-Facebook-example) and varied case studies, analytical direction and measurement insights, Dave and Mike's book provides the fundamental strategies for your brand to truly connect with people via social media."—Zena Weist, Director, Social Media, H&R Block
"Thomas and Barlow have nailed it. I wish I wrote this book."—Chris Brogan, co-author of TrustAgents
"As a social media strategist for a large brand, I understand the challenges companies face integrating social media. This book presents practical solutions in a way that makes sense for large enterprises."—Bert DuMars, Vice President E-Business & Interactive Marketing, Newell Rubbermaid
"Lots of companies try their hands at social media and are unhappy with the results because they don't do their homework. Success in social media comes from smart preparation and making sure your online actions support your key business objectives. This book lays out the groundwork in a way that's easy for companies to understand and implement."—Justin Levy, author of Facebook Marketing: Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign
"Many enterprises continue to treat social media as a box they'd rather not open. With Enterprise Social Media Strategy, David Thomas and Mike Barlow not only provide organizations with the keys to that particular box, but also clear, actionable strategies for dealing with its contents. The payoff: happier customers, better products and services, and a potentially enormous trove of valuable business intelligence. Highly recommended."—Tom Webster, Vice President, Strategy, Edison Research

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Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges Review

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(More customer reviews)Writing this review has been is one of the hardest things I have had to do. I wanted to like this book, it's a great subject, a knowledgeable an author and great prior reviews. Unfortunately this book does not deliver making this review tough to put together. I would not suggest using this book to introduce Web 2.0 to the business. I know that this review may draw some heat from the other reviewers but here are the reasons behind my review and why I recommend reading McAfee's HBR article rather than investing the time in this book.
The book covers an important topic and a critical time in its formation. What is the impact of social computing technologies like Wiki's, blogs and other forms of social media. McAfee defines Enterprise 2.0 as the use of emergent social software platforms by organization s in pursuit of their goals. (p.71) McAfee says that Enterprise 2.0 is not primarily a technology issue. This is not born out in the text as majority of the book spends time defining the technology behind E 2.0 (chapter 3 and 4) and the capabilities provided by the technology (chapter 5).
McAfee treats E 2.0 technology at a high level. Its is as if, McAfee does not believe a business person would be interested in how the technology works, which makes the web 2.0 technologies seem trivial. If McAfee had expanded the view of technology to include the integration of business processes and information with these technologies he could have provided powerful business based descriptions.
McAfee intended to write a business book about Enterprise 2.0 but he concentrates the vast majority of pages on emergent social software platforms (ESSP). There is little discussion of the business impact of the software, how it applies to major business processes or activities and how these platforms change the way business work at a strategic, market, financial, product, organizational or operational areas. These are all questions business executives have and they are not treated sufficiently in this book. This is one reason why I would not suggest using this book as a platform for launching new social software initiatives.
Business books relies on case studies to illustrate their points and while McAfee has case studies from Google, Serena Software, the CIA, and Vista Print which should provide a solid foundation. However, the cases talk about how these people implemented Espy's in a generic fashion saying that company A implemented a blog to solve their problem. Only the description of Google's adoption of predictive markets constitutes a strong case. The limited use of practical or detailed examples is puzzling, as it does not give the reader access to McAfee's experience and insight.
McAfee further weakens his argument as the book draws on academic frameworks outside of E 2.0 and technology to answer critical issues. Normally, this is where a strong case study would illustrate how people have addressed these challenges. However, McAfee chooses strong academics including discussion of theories of Granovetter (Strength of Weak Ties), Hayek and Harford (Theory of Knowledge), Gourville (Behavioral economics and slow rates of adoption) to make his points. This unfortunately weakens the book's business impact and credibility. Not that the ideas of these thought leaders are weak, its just that they give the book a stronger academic feel than other business books. While the case studies are a good touch, the examples involve implementing relatively generic web 2.0 a wiki for one, a blog for another. While the cases do discuss the results achieved, the cases would have been stronger if the case studies provided more detail about how the cases used these technologies to achieve these results.
Finally the book seems to be stitched together from three separate research pieces. The best part of the book is actually the final chapter. It describes the book that I believe you should have read as it hints at the business, financial and other issues opened by Enterprise 2.0. The tone, content and focus of the final chapter is distinctly different from the rest of the work. If the whole book could have been like the last chapter this would have been one of the best business books of the last three years.
The first five chapters of the book are more descriptive of the phenomenon and suffer from McAfee's desire to assert his brand of the terms Enterprise 2.0 and ESSP. This assertion comes from his frequent use of the first person to define and drive the book forward, I believe this or I see that. This weakens the book and gives it a self-referential style that does not go over well with a business audience.
In chapters six and seven the book branches off into a discussion of the business value of IT and refuting Nicholas Carr's IT doesn't matter argument. This part comes out of the blue and discuses IT in general rather than the specifics of how ESSP changes the definition of IT and its role in the enterprise. Another opportunity lost in my estimation.
The introduction of Web 2.0 and social software into enterprises is a significant opportunity for every organization. This book has the potential to introduce business to these technologies in much the same way that Hammer and Champy set the stage for re-engineering, or Negroponte and the internet. However after thinking about this review for more than a week, I felt that the book does not do this and I cannot recommend it as the way of introducing ESSP's to the enterprise. I do not intent to criticize the author, his knowledge or his experience as I am sure that McAfee knows more about how to make this technology work to create value, it just did not show in this book. Sorry to offer a different view on this book, but I hope that you can see the reasons behind this review.

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"Web 2.0" is the portion of the Internet that's interactively produced by many people; it includes Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and prediction markets. In just a few years, Web 2.0 communities have demonstrated astonishing levels of innovation, knowledge accumulation, collaboration, and collective intelligence. Now, leading organizations are bringing the Web's novel tools and philosophies inside, creating Enterprise 2.0. In this book, Andrew McAfee shows how they're doing this, and why it's benefiting them. Enterprise 2.0 makes clear that the new technologies are good for much more than just socializing-when properly applied, they help businesses solve pressing problems, capture dispersed and fast-changing knowledge, highlight and leverage expertise, generate and refine ideas, and harness the wisdom of crowds. Most organizations, however, don't find it easy or natural to use these new tools initially. And executives see many possible pitfalls associated with them. Enterprise 2.0 explores these concerns, and shows how business leaders can overcome them. McAfee brings together case studies and examples with key concepts from economics, sociology, computer science, consumer psychology, and management studies and presents them all in a clear, accessible, and entertaining style. Enterprise 2.0 is a must-have resource for all C-suite executives seeking to make technology decisions that are simultaneously powerful, popular, and pragmatic.

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