Home Page
Tip of the Day
CE Top News Stories
CE Personal Productivity Solutions
CE Enterprise Productivity Solutions
Business Solutions Journal
Contact Us
The End Of Marketing As We Know It
Permission Marketing
Windows CE Made Simple
Business @ The Speed of Thought
The Venture
Windows© CE 2 for Dummies
The Invisible Computer
Competing on Internet Time
Lloyd-What Happened -A Novel of Business
The End Of Marketing As We Know It
Sergio Zyman
 | Author: Sergio Zyman List Price:$27.50 Publisher: Harperbusiness, 247 pages Release Date: May, 1999  |
The End Of Marketing As We Know It
Perhaps it's because I've always had to survive on a very limited budget. But I've never had very much time for marketing people who spend huge amounts of money on flashy TV and print advertising campaigns and go to all the top parties organized by media publisher and advertising agencies. Sure, it must be a lot of fun shooting an expensive commercial at an exotic location or playing golf at Palm Beach courtesy of a grateful publisher. But does it sell product?
So I was happy to see at least some of my prejudices confirmed by Sergio Zyman, the two-time head marketing honcho of Coca-Cola, in his latest book The End Of Marketing As We Know It. In a refreshingly direct style, Zyman vigorously cuts through the smoke and mirrors that marketers have cloaked their discipline in. And he makes the startlingly obvious, yet all too often forgotten, point that the purpose of marketing is not to build up awareness or enhance image; it's to make more money by selling more products. Simple isn't it?
Zyman gives excellent advice on how to manage your advertising agency and how to continuously create and communicate new messages showing consumers why they should buy more of your products. But he hardly makes any reference at all to the Internet and email, and their value as tools for building and enhancing customer relationships. Even would-be revolutionaries, it seems, have their limits.
Back to top
Home Page
Permission Marketing
Seth Godin, Don Peppers
 | Author: Seth Godin, Don Peppers List Price:$16.80 Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 255 pages Release Date: May, 1999 |
Permission Marketing
With his shiny bald pate, pointed Spock-like ears, and intense brown eyes, Seth Godin, Vice-President of Direct Marketing for Yahoo! and the author of Permission Marketing, looks (no doubt deliberately) every inch the modern day marketing guru. But if you expect him to provide in this book a paradigm-shifting strategy that will propel your business into the stratosphere, you'll be disappointed.
What you will get, however, is an informative primer on how to upgrade your existing relationship marketing programs such as Direct Mail and customer loyalty schemes to take advantage of the lower costs and extended reach of email and the Internet. That, in itself, makes Permission Marketing a very useful book, though hardly ground-breaking.
So what exactly is Permission Marketing, in any case? It simply means persuading people to agree to learn more about your company's products and services by, for example, participating in a contest or signing up for a newsletter, and then using this permission to build a close relationship with them through regular and relevant communications and incentive programs. The ultimate objective, of course, is to sell them more products and services.
Compared to traditional marketing techniques such as print and TV advertising (which he calls Interruption Marketing), Relationship Marketing programs are a lot more flexible and cost-effective. And Godin shows in the book how contests and other Web-based promotions programs conducted by his previous company Yoyodyne achieved far higher response rates than the 2% you'd expect from a Direct Mail campaign. But even Godin has to admit that you still have to use Interruption Marketing techniques to attract customers in the first place before you can start building a relationship with them.
To me, the most significant lesson from this book is that there are no magic bullets for marketing success. Attracting customers and creating a strong bond with them is becoming increasingly difficult as competition heats up in the market place, but you cannot rely on a single technique or medium to accomplish this. Judiciously implemented, Permission Marketing can deliver enormous value to a company, but it complements rather replaces other marketing methods and techniques.
Back to top
Home Page
Windows CE Made Simple
Craig Peacock
 | Author: Craig Peacock List Price: £8.99 Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann, 160 pages Release Date: June, 1999 |
Windows CE Made Simple
Do you want to know how to print a Pocket Word file from your Handheld PC using a printer on your company's network? Or how to password protect your device to prevent other people from accessing your files and data? To find out how to carry out these and a myriad of other tasks, you should check out Windows CE Made Simple, an excellent new book written by Craig Peacock, one of the world's leading experts on the Windows CE operating system.
One of the great strengths about Windows CE Made Simple is that it is the first and – to my knowledge – only book to cover the full range of Windows CE Palm-size PCs, Handheld PCs, Handheld PC Professional devices, and it does an excellent job of explaining the differences between them.
Another thing I like about the book is its attractive and user-friendly layout, which makes it fast and easy to locate the information you require. The book is well organized in a logical series of chapters covering the main subjects that you are likely to need assistance on, such as setting up your device, Pocket Outlook, Getting Online, and E-mail. Extensive screenshots accompanied by clear step-by-step instructions show you how to use all the main features in Windows CE, and Tip boxes provide excellent advice on getting the most out of your device.
In addition to giving you sound, practical advice on how to use Windows CE, Craig also provides a lot of useful information on third-party applications. Did you know, for example, that Ilium Software has a program called Tipster that allows you to split your restaurant bill between your friends and calculate the correct tip for the waiter? I didn't, until I read this book.
Other nuggets in Windows CE Made Simple include the clearest explanation I have ever seen of the differences between POP3, SMTP, IMAP4, and LDAP email protocols and an excellent guide on how to install an Ethernet card. In fact, the book is worth its price for the information that it contains on network and Internet connectivity alone.
Windows CE Made Simple is priced at £8.99, and you can order it online from the Butterworth-Heinemann website by clicking here. No matter whether you're a beginner or an experienced user of Windows CE, you'll find invaluable advice and information in Windows CE Made Simple. I strongly recommend that you buy it!
Back to top
Home Page
Business @ The Speed of Thought
Using a Digital Nervous System
Bill Gates & Collins Hemingway
 | Author: Bill Gates & Collins Hemingway List Price: $30.00 Publisher: Warner Books, 470 pages Release Date: March 24, 1999 |
Business @ The Speed of Thought
Using a Digital Nervous System
"Business is going to change more in the next ten years than it has in the last fifty." That's the stark warning that Bill Gates gives you in the opening sentence of his new book, Business @ The Speed of Thought.
To show how you and your company can respond faster to the massive changes brought about by the flow of digital information, Microsoft's Chairman has written a practical and thought-provoking blueprint for creating what he terms as a Digital Nervous System.
One of the key points that Gates makes in the book is that business and technology are now inextricably linked and it is the responsibility of all managers -- not simply those working in the IT departments -- to leverage higher returns from their Information Technology systems. The most effective way of achieving this goal is to fully utilize the capabilities of email and Internet based applications such as Intranets to speed up the flow of information both within the enterprise and with partners such as customers, and suppliers.
While this is hardly a revolutionary thesis, it makes an enormous amount of sense. At heart, most business problems are communication problems, and the vast majority of companies spend more time and expense in collecting and gathering information than in analyzing and acting upon it. By implementing a Digital Nervous System using cost-effective PC technologies, Gates argues, companies can use software to handle routine data chores while freeing up their people's time for more value-added activities such as thinking, analyzing trends, and interacting with their customers.
Here, in my favorite quotation from the book, is how Gates describes the difference between paper-based and digital information. "When figures are in electronic form, knowledge workers can study them, annotate them, look at them in any amount of detail or in any view they want, and pass them around for collaboration. A number on a piece of paper is a dead end. A number in digital format is the start of meaningful thought and action."
Business @ The Speed of Thought is written in a direct business-like tone that is mercifully devoid of both the technobabble spouted by PC industry geeks and the trendy paradigm-shifting jargon beloved by management gurus and consultants. It contains a lot of excellent case studies from companies such as Coca Cola, Boeing, Alcoa, and (inevitably) Microsoft, and is loaded with common sense advice.
If you want to know what Bill is going to do counter the Department of Justice or how he's going crush competitors like AOL and Sun, you'll be disappointed by this book. But if you're looking for some ideas and inspiration on how to meld your company's business processes with its IT systems and the Internet to meet the challenges of the future, then you should put Business @ The Speed of Thought at the top of your shopping list.
Back to top
Home Page
Lloyd -What Happened: A Novel of Business
Stanley Bing
 | Author: Stanley Bing List Price: $24.95 Publisher: Crown Pub., 400 pages Release Date: April 1998 |
Lloyd -What Happened: A Novel of Business
One of the things that never ceases to surprise (and disappoint) me when I browse through a bookstore is how difficult it is to find a decent novel about business. Given that the world of business is taking up an increasingly large proportion of our working and social lives, it seems strange that very few modern authors seem willing to take up the challenge of writing about this subject.
Of course, there are one or two exceptions such as Po Bronson and Douglas Copeland. But the genre cries out for a major talent to chronicle the tensions and insecurities that people feel as the old certainties of the industrial economy disappear and are replaced by the wrenching change and uncertainty of the new 'knowledge-based' economy. A brave new world where huge corporations merge in the wild and often absurd pursuit of "operational synergies" (and higher stock prices), and can close down factories and offices and transplant them lock, stock, and barrel to lower wage countries in the relentless search for global efficiencies.
A proposed global merger, known as the "Moby Deal" provides the backdrop to Lloyd, by Stanley Bing, the pen-name of Gil Schwartz, a senior vice-president in charge of communications at CBS and the writer of the popular Bing column in Fortune Magazine. However, as will come as no surprise to loyal readers of his column, Bing uses biting satire and snide humor rather than drama and pathos to tell the tale of Lloyd's role in the $100 billion multinational merger that would create the world's largest corporation.
Lloyd is an easy-going, reasonably-happily married mid-level executive earning a six-figure salary, whose primary function in his working life seems to be interpreting the almost Delphic utterances of his boss Walter. The book recounts how Lloyd and his fellow executives booze, schmooze and scheme their way to the brink of the merger only for Lloyd to succeed in pulling the plug on it when he realizes that it will result in them all losing their jobs.
Bing brilliantly sends up the noxious cocktail of vapidity, greed and shameless self-interest that governs the vast majority of the decisions made by senior management in corporate America. But at the same time, the author's indulgent portrayal of the idiosyncrasies of the book's main characters, especially Lloyd, makes them highly believable and even likeable.
While Lloyd may not be the epic tome that I'm pining for, it provides a riotously funny view of the gross absurdities and excesses found in the upper reaches of today's corporate world. I sincerely hope that Stanley Bing will be inspired to write another comic business novel in the very near future.
Back to top
Home Page
The Venture
Jeff Cox
 | Author: Jeff Cox List Price: $$14.95 Publisher: Warner Books, 344 pages Release Date: May 1998 |
The Venture
What would you do if your company suddenly eliminated your position in a downsizing program? Dust off the resume and pound the streets (or the recruitment sites on the Internet) in search of a job? Or fulfil your long-held dream of striking out on your own and starting a business?
If you think you'd like to take the latter course, you should read a copy of the Venture before finally deciding to take the plunge. Written by the co-author of two business bestsellers, "Zapp!" and "The Goal", The Venture vividly describes the struggles and successes of Michael Di Gabriel, as he builds his own company after being fired from his job at an ad agency.
Even though it's a novel, The Venture is packed with valuable lessons for the budding entrepreneur and shows all the main pitfalls you need to avoid when setting up a business. The most important of these is that, no matter how many sales you've booked, you need cash -- and lots of it -- to pay off your suppliers while you are waiting to be paid by your customers. Another powerful lesson is that you need to squeeze in the time to write a clear business plan -- no matter how busy you are getting your company off the ground. Otherwise, you'll have no idea what direction you want to go in and which opportunities you should pursue in the future.
Although Michael is ultimately successful with his company, he pays a high price in his personal life, endangering his already rocky marriage by conducting an affair with one his one of his partners. Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone, but even if you decide you prefer the relative security of working for a company you'll enjoy this fast-paced tale of the joys and frustrations of running your own business.
Back to top
Home Page
Windows CE 2 for Dummies
Jinjer L. Simon
 | Author: Jinjer L. Simon List Price: $19.99 Publisher: IDG Books Worldwide, 362 pages Release Date: January 1998 |
Windows© CE 2 For Dummies
Windows CE 2 for Dummies teaches you everything you need to know in order to take full advantage of the rich capabilities of your Windows CE device.
Written in a friendly and informative style, the book provides a wealth of practical information and guidance on how to use all the main features of the Windows CE operating system. Each of the standard Windows CE applications is described in its own individual chapter. Clear, easy-to-follow instructions combined with a large number of screen shots show you how to perform a huge variety of different actions, such as creating a Pocket Word document, sending an email, adding an appointment, and synchronizing your Windows CE device to your desktop computer.
Windows CE 2 for Dummies is ideal for any business user who wants to get quickly up to speed on their new Windows CE device. With its well-designed table of contents and detailed index, it also provides a handy reference tool whenever you want an immediate answer to any questions you or your colleagues may have about the Windows CE operating system.
Back to top
Home Page
The Invisible Computer
Donald A. Norman
 | Author: Donald A. Norman List Price: $25.00 Publisher: MIT, 340 pages Release Date: October 1998 |
The Invisible Computer
If you ever wondered why your PC is so frustratingly complex to use, you should read The Invisible Computer by Donald A. Norman.
In this beautifully produced and written book, Norman passionately argues that hi-tech companies should adopt a human-centered process for developing a new generation of information appliances that satisfy the real needs of people rather than simply adding in ever more complex functions and features. Instead of a single all-purpose machine like the PC, he envisages consumers owning a large number of reliable, cheap, and easy-to-use information appliances that are designed to accomplish specific tasks such as balancing a bank account, buying and selling shares, and writing and sending messages.
As an executive at Hewlett-Packard and a former Vice President and Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Norman has a deep understanding of dynamics of the hi-tech industry, and draws on this knowledge to show why the best technology does not always win in the market place. He also does an excellent job of diagnosing the challenges the industry faces in creating products that are not only easier to use but also give consumers pride of ownership, and provides excellent guidance on how companies should implement human-centered design processes their organizations.
As devices like the Palm III and Windows CE Handheld and Palm-size PCs become more widely accepted on the market, the timing of this book is prescient. The Invisible Computer provides a fascinating and thought-provoking glimpse of how technology will change the way we work and live in the much heralded "information society" of the future.
Back to top
Home Page
Competing on Internet Time
Michael A. Cusumano & David B. Yoffe
 | Author: Michael A. Cusumano & David B. Yoffe
List Price: $26.00 Publisher:Free Press, 288 pages Release Date: October 1998 |
Competing on Internet Time
Lessons from Netscape and its Battle with Microsoft
Now that Netscape has been taken over by AOL and Sun Microsystems, you might be tempted to wonder whether this book has already passed its sell-by-date even though it was only published in October 1998.
However, you would be mistaken if you came to this conclusion, because the lessons that the authors draw from Netscape's epic battle with Microsoft to dominate the Internet space apply to any manager working in any type of business. Like it or not, with the rapid growth of the Worldwide Web and electronic commerce, all companies are now having to face the challenges of Competing on Internet Time. And this book provides an excellent guide on how to navigate this hostile and dangerous new landscape in which competitive advantage can be won and lost overnight.
Competing on Internet Time is based on onsite observation and over 50 in-depth interviews with major players in the drama from Netscape, including Jim Barksdale and Mark Andreessen, and other leading companies such as Intel, Dell, and Microsoft. It describes how Netscape became the fastest-growing software company of all time and the strategies that Microsoft adopted in order to combat the challenge posed by this aggressive and at times arrogant Internet start-up.
The authors conclude that companies need to implement a so-called Judo Strategy to succeed in the rapidly changing and brutally competitive business environment engendered by the Internet. They break down Judo Strategy into three major components
Move Rapidly to New Products and Markets
Be Flexible in Strategy & Implementation
Exploit all Points of Leverage
and describe in detail how both Netscape and Microsoft adopted these techniques to gain competitive advantage over each other.
To show the pitfalls that other companies need to avoid, Cusumano and Yoffe also diagnose the major mistakes made by both Netscape and Microsoft. Perhaps not surprisingly, the smaller and more youthful Netscape was the most frequent offender as it struggled to "find the right balance between speed and quality, given limited financial and human resources and the pressures of competing on Internet time." The company didn't help its cause either by alienating potential industry partners through its arrogance and unnecessarily drawing the fire of Microsoft by proclaiming the impending death of Windows; "don't moon the giant" is the memorable phrase used by one former Netscape executive to describe the lesson he learned from this experience.
If I have one criticism of Competing on Internet Time, it is that the dry, academic prose of the authors is at times hard work to plow through. This is particularly the case with Chapter Five, Development Strategy, which you don't really need to read unless you are interested in the technicalities of software design, development, and testing.
Despite these minor defects, Competing on Internet Time is not only a fascinating account of the struggle between Netscape and Microsoft. It also provides a highly sophisticated analysis of the strategies and practices companies must adopt to succeed in the fast-paced and unpredictable markets of the fast-paced Internet economy.
Back to top
Home Page