The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes Next

Rating:
Summary: Awesome read for every forward thinking CEO
Review: We all need a functioning crystal ball to really excell in todays competitive world. These guys have made what I call 'crystal ball polish'. Whether you prefer to flip to the middle for the 'good stuff' or wade through what is in this case a slow beginning - just do it! You'll see real world case studies and examples extrapolated into a believable future. It's an intelligent compilation that should be worked into every forward looking business persons reading list. Once you've read it, you'll feel like you've polished your crystal ball. Really.

Rating:
Summary: More Questions than Answers
Review: What a book! Anyone looking for Answers or to know what the future will be need not apply. The author's whole point is that there are no answers, and we have to manage our way through the paradoxes as best we can. This is important, unfortunately this point is not always clear in the text - sometimes one is left hanging, wondering whether a question has been asked or a statement made. (hence the lost point, chaps) Maybe I just don't translate American all that well, being English and divided only by language! What Paradoxes? Things are getting bigger. And smaller. Things are going faster. And slower. Things are going global. And local. So the key is to know your self (a point they do make) and this puts me in mind of a quote I read (and can't find so I'll misquote it if I may:- "Give me the strength to change the things I need to change, the perserverence to put up with the things I can't change and the wisdom to know the difference." I am also intrigued by the 'back to the future' angle the authors use - 'futurists better be good historians' sounds like another paradox to me. Overall a good read - a waypoint on the journey with a few good hints and tips. Some other waypoints I have found on mine- Having a few good heros helps (strangely there are not many of these in this in the book) - so check out Horatio Nelson (Christopher Hibbert) - how can one so flawed become so great? The Art of War by Sun Tzu (full text is on the net), I have a printed version with a forward by James Clavell - again notable in its absence. Built to Last (Collins & Porrass - two more Stanford Alumini) which treats the Paradox question as a dualistic concept from Chinese religious philosophy (!). Bon Voyage!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and thought provoking
Review: While centered somewhat on marketing perspectives and therefore containing the inevitable irritating references to current brilliant gambits in this field, this book is an intriguing read and draws some very interesting conclusions about trends in our behavior and the possibilities for our collective future. The Delta metaphor is quite apt and provides an understandable premise for what might otherwise be a very complex idea. The actual predictions for the near and distant future contained in the book are unexpected and thought provoking. This book is well worth reading if you seek some insight to the warp and weft of the fabric that makes up today; and what the pattern of the cloth may look like for tomorrow.

Rating:
Summary: The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth
Review: While the authors make some valid points (i.e product is more important than process in a chaotic world; and To BE, to DO, to GO, to KNOW) the book could have been a whole lot better. Yes, the world, she is a changin'.....yes, the old rules don't matter anymore (like corporate loyalty). Perhaps then, the book serves as a reminder of sorts. Sometimes, however, they seem to fall into the anthropormorphosizing abyss ....making ANALOGIES(which they describe early in the book as an historic holdover of "linear thinking"...why do they insist on doing it themselves?) of physical principles with socio-economic factors. For example, check out their definitions of "particle economics" : " The economic analogy of particle physics, which concerns itself with matter so small that it lacks magnitude yet still exerts attraction and has inertia"....say WHAT!?! Or better yet, "Capital Quarks": "The sub-atomic structure of the elemental breeding matter of any business. Capital quarks come in four forms...." Maybe they're "onto" some new "paradigm" here, but they present no hard evidence of their claims and it hurts the book....it starts to smack of some psuedo-new-age thing (call it the "Tao of Business")....For anyone so inclined, check out a much more erudite work by the brilliant Yale Mathematician and Economist, Irving Fisher: "The Applications of Mathematics to the Social Sciences". (Fisher wrote more than 30 books, some of which are only now being re-released by Yale University Press...he was "the greatest American economist that America has ever produced" according to Joseph Schumpeter). In one manuscript, he built a hydro-dynamic model of capital market equilibrium and explained it in his mathematical investigations of the theory of value and price. It would also have been nice to see some more depth regarding "game theory"...a fascinating subject that is more applicable today than ever before. A great source here would have been to at least address some of the seminal work of John Von Neumann....unarguably one of the greatest mathematical minds ever produced: the inventor of the digital computer and the producer of the original work on Game Theory. With prodding from some of his colleagues at Princeton, Von Neumann applied his prodigious skills in mathematics with almost fearsome results to the social sciences (i.e. his game theory notions advocated a "first strike" strategy against the Soviets during the cold war....how's that for a "pragmatic" point of view during a truly MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) time?? But the biggest problem I had with the book was something more subtle. It was the same kind of issue I had with Kevin Kellys book ("Out of Control"....which described business/social chaos in a more "biological" metaphor that Taylor or Wacker). It has to with reconciling any sort of balance in this crazy new world. Taylor and Wacker address it at least by telling us that there is no such thing...that it is an illusion of sorts...we can find our own balance by admitting we have no real control and to "go with the flow"....not to fight anxiety and chaos, but instead, to learn to embrace it... like "drivers stuck in an LA traffic jam"...just concentrate on taking care of our own car (while listening to book-tapes!) They highlight this concept early in the book with the vivid example of the women commandering a "payback" from her boss for a signed deal she has brought in from a customer for a significant chunk of change. No payback from her boss...no deal...she will walk out the door (probably towards a competitor who can deliver the same goods for her signed customer...although one would suspect such a competitor might view her with a jaded eye...why? because they'll immediately think that she could do the same thing to them!) However, in a subtle mention at the end of the book, regarding merged or merging companies, the authors state:" You can find synchronicity of vision, even synchronicity of goals, but if the VALUES are not the same, the companies won't be the same color (new age speak for "soul"??) when they meet. And if the color is not the same, they cannot merge." SO, are they now telling us that values sometimes DO matter??....not just values of the self, but values about how we interact with other "value" laden humans? How then, do we, as responsible citizens entering the 21st century, reconcile the need to be "loyal to oneself" in these chaotic times, when the ultimate success of a business merger (or similar cooperative agreement) rests in a congruency of values? THIS is something that would be great to get the authors' opinion on...something that I know alot of people struggle with everyday, and that has become so polarized in our modern society (i.e Christian Right Family Values on one end and "Greed is a good thing" on the other). Moreover, it is only likely to increase in the next 500 days/weeks/months/years as our world becomes more interconnected than ever before. The book really rocks when they talk about "stealth wealth" and "downward nobility"....two trends that are so cutting edge they should copyright the phrases. And also when they mention their own experiences with addictions and troubled times, and how they have noticed the common-thread of the "gift of danger" in successful persons lives. This is great insight, that they only briefly mention. So, while it touches on a lot, more focus in certain areas would have made the book a no. 1 hit.

Rating:
Summary: Baloney
Review: You really have to approach this book with your baloney detectors on 'High.' There's a lot of excellent, insightful analysis on what's going on with the change 'jerk' (where 'jerk' is defined as the rate of change of the rate of change -- the acceleration of acceleration) of recent years, where changes in technology drive societal changes at an expanding pace. There's also a whole lot of unfocused hogwash and one-true-wayism; these kids take themselves quite seriously, in that bedrock way that people who think they *don't* take themselves too seriously sometimes do. You can sift through the bullpuckey to find a good haul of useful nuggetry, but if you swallow this book whole, you'll find that the sharp corners don't go down so easy.

Rating:
Summary: Well-intentioned, occasionally useful, but...
Review: You really have to approach this book with your baloney detectors on 'High.' There's a lot of excellent, insightful analysis on what's going on with the change 'jerk' (where 'jerk' is defined as the rate of change of the rate of change -- the acceleration of acceleration) of recent years, where changes in technology drive societal changes at an expanding pace. There's also a whole lot of unfocused hogwash and one-true-wayism; these kids take themselves quite seriously, in that bedrock way that people who think they *don't* take themselves too seriously sometimes do. You can sift through the bullpuckey to find a good haul of useful nuggetry, but if you swallow this book whole, you'll find that the sharp corners don't go down so easy.