Survival of the Smartest: Managing Information for Rapid Action and World-Class Performance

Rating:
Summary: Recipes for success in the information age
Review: Mendelson and Ziegler combine solid research with interesting real-world company information to provide an insightful discussion of what it will take for tomorrow's companies to be successful. In brief, companies need to take a hard look at how effective they are at monitoring their business environment for new threats and opportunities, sharing knowledge across different parts of their company, strategic and operational decision-making, and focusing on key core competencies. The company's performance along these dimensions, or lack thereof, will provide clear directions for change and improvement.

The performance of the company along the above dimensions determines its Organizational IQ, which Mendelson and Ziegler's research shows is a strong indicator of financial performance. I find this Organization IQ concept very useful and practical, especially since the book provides guidelines for diagnosing IQ deficiencies and setting directions for improvement. The wealth of real company examples and case studies make the concepts in the book concrete and actionable.

I highly recommend the book to all senior managers, and anybody else interested in understanding what it will take to meet and successfully overcome the challenges of the information age.

Rating:
Summary: a large leap forward for humanity -and IQ - of organisations
Review: The importance of this book can be judged by any employee asking why can't we work in an organisation which is better developed on the author's 5 Organisational IQ factors:

1 EXTERNAL INFORMATION AWARENESS, ie each part of our organisation captures external information (customers, technology opportunities, competitors' actions) quickly and accurately

2 EFFECTIVE DECISION ARCHITECTURE, ie in our organisation decisions are made at the right level (by the people with the best information and perspective). As a result decisions : are made quickly, have high quality, instill ownership and accountability

3 INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION, ie each part of our organisation knows what it needs to know when it needs to know it. Effective information flows 4-dimensionally: Horizontal, cross functional Top-down, org-wide goals and priorities Bottom-up, operational challenges and opportunities Learning, review over time of all of above

4 ORGANISATIONAL FOCUS, ie organisation systematically fights overload and complexity by: Limiting scope of the business; focusing on core competences; simplifying processes

5 CREATING AN INFORMATION AGE BUSINESS NETWORK, ie Organisation maximises the value of eternal partnerships by applying the above 4 High IQ factors to the entire business network

Would love to share experiences with anyone working or reading up on how to improve organisations IQ factors

chris macrae, chief infomediary, brandknowledge.com e-mail [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: In the tradition of academia
Review: This book is special in that it adds empirical support for the authors' business hypothesis. However, their ideas themselves are not revolutionary. Rather they organized and framed a lot of the ideas that today's business leaders already know and practice.

I suppose that the book is in the tradition of academic research paper rather than overblown business hyperbole. As with any academic oriented publications, they make less than interesting reading, but valuable nevertheless.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent approach, more detail please
Review: This book provides you with an excellent guideline and hand on approach to both Knowledge Management, Business Intelligence, electonic commerce and organisation.

The authors provide an excellent framework that integrate both technology and strategy.

Some of the provided tools (maps, charts, ...) are very useful and directly applicable to any organisation.

The missing star is because of the "high level" analysis that deserve a view to the details that is not always presented

Anyone dealing with Information and Technology will benefit from reading this book

Rating:
Summary: Great stuff - and great review in Fast Company
Review: Well written and absolutely practical. This book is dead on, and will be appreciated by every high-tech manager/executive who struggles to exploit company knowledge in a timely manner. I highly recommend this book to any employee who cares about outsmarting the competition in the 21st century.