Amazon.co.uk
Evolve! is Rosabeth Moss Kanter's latest in a highly influential string
of books on organisational management (including Innovation, World
Class, When Giants Learn to Dance, and The Change Masters).
Harvard Business School professor Kanter is the Eartha Kitt of
change-management gurus. Just when you think the grand dame has taken her final
bow, she comes bounding back onto the scene with a new act that's as shrewd and
insightful as anything any young kitten has to offer--but benefiting from
decades of wisdom and experience that puts the whole litter to shame. Yes, the
ubiquitous dot (as in "com") after the E in "Evolve" on the
book's cover may suggest to the cynical that this is another old-school change guru
weighing in with the obligatory guide to making it on the Net--and months after
e-commerce mania has subsided, to boot! And granted, the thumbnail keys to
successful I-preneuring that form the book's structure--namely, a willingness
to improvise, a desire to network aggressively with other sites, a readiness to
create "integrated communities," and a commitment to creating a
workplace culture that attracts and retains the best talent--aren't necessarily
breakthrough insights, however cogently presented.
But Evolve! stands out among the vast spate of e-commerce how-tos of
the past few years because of the meticulous, rigorous research on the part of
Kanter and her legion of Harvard Business associates. Here, coupled with
Kanter's always-keen prose, that research translates into perhaps the most
vivid, probing, and instructive anthology of e-commerce success (and failure)
stories yet to appear in one book. Kanter & Co. conducted over 300
interviews, plus surveys with nearly three times as many companies worldwide,
to tease out their conclusions on what works and what doesn't when doing
business online--with brash start-ups as well as brick-and-mortar giants. That
serious-minded, Harvard-quality sleuthing is reflected in the long narratives
that make up the meat of the book, detailing the complete online journeys of
some of the world's most high-profile companies, from venerable offliners
venturing online (among them,Arrow Electronics, Barnes & Noble, NBC,
Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Williams-Sonoma, and Sun) to the Net-born (Amazon,
eBay, Razorfish, EarthWeb, iXL, Renren.com, and Abuzz, which clearly emerges
here as Kanter's pet model of how to do it right in entrepreneurial
cyberspace). If you've followed the start-up scene with eagle eyes every day
for the past five years, you might already be familiar with these companies'
twisting, turning story lines. If, more likely, you haven't, you're in for some
illuminating object lessons on what works (and what doesn't) on the precarious,
often uncharted terrain of e-commerce--not to mention some really good reading.
Shortly before Evolve! went to press, Kanter added two new chapters
to address the latest changes in the e-commerce market. That's a valuable
update, but even if she'd skipped the postscript, Evolve! is blessedly
free of reckless cybermania. And, unlike many such dot-com how-tos, it's wise
enough to know that, far from having completely rewritten the rules of good
business, the callow world of e-commerce has much to learn from the offline
forbears it often scoffs at. For these reasons, the observations and advisories
in Evolve! should transcend the inevitable fluctuations of the
e-commerce market in the years to come. In other words, this is the real thing:
smart, deeply researched advice from a pro whose talents are evident on every
page. Well, except for the rap lyrics she's penned for "Evolve!--The
Song," which kick off the book, and run along such lines: "You're not
alone, so start placing your bet/On finding lots of partners throughout the
Net!" Cole Porter she's not. Then again, maybe they wouldn't sound so lame
if only we could get that other old pro, Eartha Kitt, to slip into her catsuit
and purr her way through them. --Timothy Murphy
Amazon.com
Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the Eartha Kitt of
change-management gurus. Just when you think the grand dame has taken her final
bow, she comes bounding back onto the scene with a new act that's as shrewd and
insightful as anything any young kitten has to offer--but benefiting from
decades of wisdom and experience that puts the whole litter to shame. Take, for
instance, Evolve!, Kanter's latest in a string of highly influential
books on organizational management... Lesen
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manager magazin (09/2001)
In ihrem jüngsten Werk legt Kanter dar, wie sich Leben und Arbeiten in der
digitalen Welt verändern eine neue Kultur, die E-Kultur, entsteht. Die Seele
dieser neuen Kultur ist nicht die Technologie, sondern sind Beziehungsnetzwerke
innerhalb und außerhalb von Unternehmen, die Energie und Geisteskraft
freisetzen, die Kreativität und Zusammenarbeit fördern.
© manager magazin -
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