In preparing this course I have drawn on a large number of periodicals, books, and web sites.

See also the document "Pre- Reading" for articles that were printed and sent out before the commencement of the course.

In addition to the pre-reading, the following articles referred to on slides have been printed out. The open-book icon denotes an article which has been printed out

Reading 2.4 Brynjolfsson et al - "The Matrix of Change", Sloan Management Review, Winter 1997, p1997

Reading 3.1. Business Case Pro-forma

This is a template that I’ve developed over several years of management and consulting, for preparing a business case to proceed (or sometimes, not proceed) with a development. NB: I never use it exactly as here, but it forms a good check-list.

Reading 3.2. Information Economics Scorecard. (From Information Economics, by Parker & Benson). This is a way of scoring (ranking) projects that takes into account intangible factors. It’s not entirely satisfactory, but its better than anything else I’ve seen.

 

The closed-book icon on various slides indicates a reference that is not printed out.

"The Hollow ring of the productivity revival" HBR Nov 1996, P81

"Enterprise.com – Market Leadership in the Information Age", by Jeff Papows.

"Executive Edge" (on-line magazine) from Gartner Group http://www.ee-online.com/

Nasdaq Index: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^IXIC&d=c&t=5y&l=on&z=b&q=l

Standish "Voyages" and "Chaos" reports - research on the reasons why systems developments fail. http://standishgroup.com/visitor/research.htm

Comparison of Unix and Windows NT http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/

"Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change" HBR Mar-Apr 2000, p67

"The Innovator’s Dilemma. When New Technologies cause Great Firms to Fail", by Clayton Christensen.

"Crossing the Chasm", by Geoffrey Moore.

"Mission Critical" by Thomas Davenport. This is an excellent book covering the business and project management of ERP systems. It does not get too bogged down in technicalities.

"e-Data. Turning Data into Information with Data Warehousing". As with Mission Critical, a good focus on the business and project management aspects of the problem.

Internet History and Statistics:-

Internet Statistics http://www.isc.org/ds/hosts.html

Internet History http://members.magnet.at/dmayr/history.htm

and http://www.isoc.org/guest/zakon/internet/history.h11.htm

"Customers.com", by Patricia B Seybold

Although not specifically cited, the following may be of general interest.

This is my favorite source of management reading. It is published every two months, and most issues have something of interest.

Papers that I considered including in this course:-

How Venture Capital Works HBR Nov-Dec 1998, page 131

The case of the profitless PC Ibid, P28

The Discipline of Innovation Ibid P149

Looking Ahead: Implications of the Present HBR Sept-Oct 1997, p18

Needed: a new system of Intellectual Property Rights Ibid P94

Developing products on Internet Time Ibid P108

The Real Problem with Computers Ibid P178

The Four Faces of Mass Customization HBR Jan-Feb 1997, P91

The coming battle for customer information Ibid P53

The promise – and peril – of integrated cost systems HBR July-Aug 1998, P109

Breaking Compromises, Runaway Growth HBR Sept-Oct 1996, P131

Time-Pacing; Competing in Markets that won’t stand still HBR Mar-Apri 1998, p59

The Right Mind-set for Managing Information Technology HBR Sept-Oct 1998, p118

In Search of Productivity Ibid, P153

Fair Process- Managing in the Knowledge Economy HBR July-Aug 1997, P65

Putting your company’s whole brain to work Ibid, P110

How Architecture wins Techology Wars HBR Mar-Apr 1993

Will Architecture win the Technology Wars HBR May-Juny 1993, p162

Discovering New Value in Intellectual Property HBR Jan-Feb 2000, p54

Beating Microsoft at Its Own Game HBR Jan-Feb 2000, p159. (Book review)

(for full information on these books I recommend that you look them up on Amazon.com, even if you then buy them elsewhere. Because it is now very easy to use Amazon as a reference, I have not given the traditional "Publisher(date)" reference form).

This list repeats references to the books specifically cited above, as well as several new ones.

Three books that I particularly recommend:-

• Customers.com, by Patricia B Seybold. In my view, THE book to get on making E-Commerce work. This was an important source for section 6 (Internet) of this course.
• The Death of Distance – how the Communications Revolution will Change our Lives, by Frances Cairncross. Very good on trends, futures.
• "Enterprise.com – Market Leadership in the Information Age", by Jeff Papows.

Other books:-

• Net Profit – How to use the Internet to Improve your Business, by Jim Higgins. An excellent New Zealand book. Jim is a fellow and past president of the NZ Computer Society, is chairman of the Internet Society of NZ (ISOCNZ), and a leading NZ netrepreneur. Full of practical advice and local examples, at $NZ25 from the NZ Computer Society this is good value.
• Net Future. The 7 cybertrends that will drive your business, create new wealth, and define your future. By Chuck Martin. Well worth reading.
• Unleashing the Killer App. Digital Strategies for Market Dominance. Larry Downes & Chunka Mui. Before I read this book, I’d considered "The Killer App" in terms of a software product like Windows that drives out competition and makes its vendor rich through the software sales. This book enlightened me to the fact that a killer app may just as easily be something like Fedex’s Cosmos.
• Sense & Respond – Capturing Value in the Network Era. Stephen P. Bradley & Richard L Nolan, editors. The title contains the message.
• The Economics of Electronic Commerce, by Soon-Yong Choi, Dail O. Stahl, and Andrew B. Whinston. I should have been warned by the title – this is in fact an economics textbook, and is light on guidelines and advice to the executive who has to actually make decisions based on this stuff.
• The Future of the Electronic Marketplace. Derek Leebaert, Ed. A series of monographs. Perhaps I’m too thick to understand what they’re saying, but I didn’t get much out of this book.
• Leveraging the new Intrastructure – How Market Leaders Capitalize on Information Technology, by Peter Weill & Marianne Broadbent.
  Heavy going, I didn’t get much out of this one.
• New Rules for the New Economy, by Kevin Kelly. Very readable, lots of catchy slogans, perhaps a bit lightweight.
• StrikingItRich.com. Profiles of 23 incredibly successful websites you’ve probably never heard of. By Jaclyn Easton. Contains a lot of case studies. Particularly useful if you think that successful E-Commerce requires a big enterprise – many of the cases are sole-traders or similarly small companies. The treatment is superficial compared to Seybold however.
• Blueprint to the Digital Economy. Creating Wealth in the era of E-Business. Don Tapscott, Ed. Heavy going.
• Information Rules – A Strategic Guide to the New Economy, by Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian
• Opening Digital Markets – Battle plans and Business Strategies for Internet Commerce, by Walid Mougayar. This is very good, and may join the top three above.
• B2B Exchanges. The Killer Application in the Business to Business Internet Revolution, by Arthur B. Sculley & W.William A. Woods.

• The Social Life of Information, by John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid.
  The authors remind us that we’ve become so focussed on where we think we should be – a place where technology empowers individuals and obliterates social organizations – that we often fail to see where we’re really going and what’s helping us get there. Recommended reading.
• Clicks and Mortar. Passion Driven Growth in an Internet Driven World. By David S Pottruck and Terry Pearce. Pottruck is the president of Schwab: this is an account of the growth of Schwab. I was expecting more hard information about the development of Schwab on-line, and the conflict between Click and Bricks – instead, this book is a book about leadership and values.

• e-Data. Turning Data into Information with Data Warehousing, by Jill Dyche.
  A good overview of this topic.
• Mission Critical. Realising the Promise of Enterprise Systems, by Thomas H. Davenport.

Two books on the increasing importance of agents and on-line communities. I’m sceptical of Hagel’s point of view – think that he overstates the importance of the community effect, but who knows, he could be right. However the role of the Infomediary, another of his themes, is very important (in my opinion).

• Net Gain – Expanding Markets through Virtual Communities, by John Hagel III & Arthur G. Armstrong.
• Net Worth – Shaping Markets when customers make the rules, by John Hagel III & Marc Singer.

A book which is a more focused on "How you should use your web site" is

• Futurize your Enterprise – Business Strategy in the age of the E-Customer" by David Seigel. Seigel’s key theme: Use your web site to listen to your customers. The book is a bit marred by reliance on fictitious case studies – Seybold is much better with her real cases.

Some authors claim that the most important asset of a corporation, and the only source of sustainable competitive advantage, is its corporate knowledge. Companies such as BP have built their strategy around being a "learning organization".

In early planning for this course I was going to include some material on knowledge management, but I had to omit it due to time constraints. If you are interested in this topic, then useful books are:-

• The Fifth Discipline, by Peter Senge. The classic – can be a bit dense, but essential to the true understanding of the learning organisation.
• Working Knowledge – how organizations manage what they know, by Tomas H. Davenport & Laurence Prusak.
• Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate, by Michael Schrage. HBR Review is at http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/ideasatwork/schrage.html.

"B2B Application Integration – e-Business-Enable your Enterprise", by David S. Linthicum.

Yes, you want to have your accounts integrated with your suppliers inventory integrated with your customers orders – but how? This book provides a guide to the various way in which applications can be integrated, and their relative strengths and weaknesses. Surprise surprise – there is no one best method, but a place for them all. Required reading for anybody who has to deal with the "How" of integration.

Many of the case studies described in this book are already in my course material, so I didn’t order this book: -

• The Deconstructors and the Deconstructed: Corporate Leaders and Laggards in the Internet Economy, bu Phillip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster. HBR Review is at http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/ideasatwork/evanswuster.html

The following were books recommended to me by Amazon, based on my previous buying patterns. I probably won’t buy them, as they overlap other books that I already have.

• Designing Systems for Internet Commerce
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201571676/ref=recs_books/002-4351882-7265008
• Understanding Electronic Commerce (Strategic Technology Series)
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572315601/ref=recs_books/002-4351882-7265008
• Webonomics : Nine Essential Principles for Growing Your Business on the World Wide Web
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767901347/ref=recs_books/002-4351882-7265008
• Digital Darwinism : 7 Breakthrough Business Strategies for Surviving in the Cutthroat Web Economy by Evan I. Schwartz

• Creating Value in the Network Economy by Don Tapscott (Editor). A collection of HBR articles.
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875849113/ref=recs_books/002-4351882-7265008
• Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends, and Friends into Customers, by Seth Godin, Don Peppers. "Permission Marketing" is what companies like Amazon do when they offer you recommendations (click here for your recommendations), and invite you to subscribe to services such as "Editors choice".

There are a number of references throughout the slides. Some more:-

General references for IT Terms and acronyms. aol.pcwebopedia.com

and another - http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/

A meta-search engine (searches several web sites) for IT professionals:-

http://www.techcrawler.com/eo.asp?nz=897000

I’ve tried it out a few times, with mixed results.

Forrester – an excellent source of information. Trial subscriptions run for 90 days, but hint at a wealth of material to full subscribers. http://www.forrester.com/

(NB: I have used only free sites (including trial subscriptions) in preparing this course, so I can't comment on the quality of for-fee reports)

Aberdeen is a good source of technical research – UNIX vs /NT, for example,

Ernst Young provide an on-line management consulting service. I’ve not used it, but it is mentioned favorably in some of the papers that I’ve read. http://ernie.ey.com/

Internet Appliances http://www.iword.com/iword41/iword41.html

There’s other good stuff in the iword site.