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Summary: Should have been a "Dummies" book
Review: I'd gotten this book thinking it was the latest and greatest of business books. How can you go wrong with a Harvard Press book?
Apparently, Kanter has found a way to do it. For those who know nothing about business or about information technology, or who have never turned on a computer, this will be a fantastic read. For those who want anything of substance, this bit of fluff will be a throw-away book. I wouldn't even lend it to others, it's so bad.
Get Customers.Com by Seybold instead.
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Summary: Incredibly Relevant!!
Review: I'm in the middle of Evolve! and just could not resist telling the world about this great book. A year ago I founded a web-based education company. Kanter's insights into on-line business put in perspective for me the million things that I have learned since vernturing into the start-up world. Evolve! is an incredibly well written, easy to read book, with great insights in just about every paragraph. I recommend it to anyone interested in learning about business in the new economy and, especially, to anyone charged with developing about business strategies in the new millenium!
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Summary: What's Old Is New Again
Review: In college I studied Greek Philosophy. I particulary enjoyed learning of Heraclitus,who's theory of "Flux" espoused everything is in a constant state of change. I couldn't help being reminded of this when reading Professor Kanter's wonderful book, Evolve!. I felt I was back in a classroom learning from another great philosopher,of the influence of change. Her insight, deduced from extensive research, into the Digital Culture of today is extremely helpful to those of us who wish to learn,live and thrive in this new economy.Congratulations and thank you Dr. Kanter
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Summary: The History of Today's Internet
Review: In the genre of e-commerce handbooks Evolve! does not give all the answers. There is no blueprint step by step process to Internet success that is outlined in her writings. Rather, the book presents a view of the correct culture, and outlook of a successful e-business. Social interactions are modified, and conflict is encouraged. In the end the focus is then shifter to the individual who is reading the book. Attention is given to the qualities of an effective leader in a fast changing internet environment where one must be a salesman and visionary while keeping track of concrete deadlines. Evolve! also has a large collection of research to back its claims. The Author, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a Harvard professor with a multitude of graduate students at her disposal. This gives her book a large amount of data and research into the various companies that have shaped the Internet and the world of e-business. It divides the players into the categories of Dotcoms, Dotcom Enablers, and Wannadots. It also shows the mistakes, and changes that occurred when the market leaders were first developing their focuses and strategies. To me the greatest aspect of the book is the in-depth historical perspective on the last four years in Silicon Valley. Big players, and company insiders give valuable information on their struggles to become the market leaders. The information is current, the background information is informative, and its message is useful.
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Summary: Much less substance than I was hoping for.
Review: Kanter has written some good material on how companies need to develop a digital culture. But when you see a book of around 350 pages expounding on this topic, you might be concerned about how much value you will derive from reading. "Evolve" is engaging and contains the ideas Kanter has written about elsewhere (as in her HBR article "The Ten Deadly Mistakes of Wanna-Dots"), such as the differences between dot.coms, dot.com enablers, and "wanna-dots". This book addresses issues of profound importance for organizations attempting to transform their culture, processes, and architecture to take advantage of the Internet. Skimming this book will reveal some useful ideas, but much of the real content can be found in the HBR article. The book is filled with interesting examples and detailed cases of around 25 companies including: e-Bay, Drugstore.com, CNBC.com, and e-commerce venture at Williams-Sonoma and Cisco. Many busy executives, however, may be frustrated looking for the meat amidst the stories. Kanter excels at presenting ideas that may not be particularly new in ways that are innovative and picturesque. For example, the third chapter "Lipstick on a Bulldog: Why Cosmetic Change Doesn't Work" will make you turn to that page, but you will find mostly company anecdotes. (The best part of the chapter, her "anti-rules" for success, already appeared in the HBR article.) Readers may enjoy her presentation of business strategy for Web-dependent companies as being like improvisational theater, but will probably agree that the biggest obstacles to change are not technological but grounded in management and employee attitudes. Though the book was published in 2001, it already sounds dated in some respects. Kanter's sharp distinct between dot.coms and wanna-dots no longer sounds convincing. Neither do her observations that unprofitable Internet businesses get high stock market valuations. Kanter's prescriptions for encouraging change may not be as actionable as in some other books and shorter writings.
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Summary: I recommend this book!
Review: Moss Kanter uses rich, colorful stories to demonstrate her lessons about business leadership, change management, and how to be innovative in the new Internet era. Her lessons and case-study examples basically predict the dot-com bubble burst; you won't be surprised at what has happened to dot-coms after you read her book! All of the developments in the past two years make much more sense after reading Evolve. Moss Kanter's thorough stories about business successes and failures paint a coherent picture of what to do, what not to do, and how to learn from others' mistakes. I definitely recommend this book, I could not put it down. Her narrative is so colorful and user-friendly, it is a real page-turner!
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Summary: Is Basic Org Design Stupid!
Review: Moss Kanter's book is over-hyped from the cover onward. Three problems: 1) the book starts with the obligatory writing of 2 sections filled with gross generalizations with little data to support many of the statements (despite professing to have major data to support her conclusions), 2) The book was clearly started back during the Internet Hype days before the bubble burst. I will admit that there do appear a few last minute editorial insertions referencing the March 2000 start of the meltdown but her praise of companies without substantive business models betrays the age of the text. 3) I know it is bad to spoil the endings of books but I have got to, Moss Kanter finally, in the last third of the book, gets to the point of outlining how dumb organizations can evolve in this way cool internet era. However, if you look at her recipe endnote you will see that she is digging up a basic organizational change model that she introduced in the early 1990's and has simply churned it through Internet start-up war stories. E-volving? Hardly. New and invigorating? Doubtful. Relevant? Only if you have been asleep for the last 4 years. Having been hard on the book, I do think it has a 3-star place on my bookshelf but clearly it won't be equal to my often referenced, dog-eared copy of "Competing for the Future" or "The Knowledge-Creating Company."
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Summary: Kaleidoscopic View of Successfully Connected e-Cultures!
Review: Rosabeth Moss Kanter is one of our finest thinkers about organizational change. In Evolve!, she has taken on a very large challenge. She attempts to help the young and the old, the e-hip and the offline, the techies and the nontechies, and those in new economy and old economy companies understand one another better so they can cooperate for greater results through using the Internet as an enabling medium. She also takes a look at beneficial cultures separately from the perspectives of pure dot com companies, dotcom-enablers (like Sun Microsystems), and wannadots (already-established companies seeking to add the Internet to their businesses). In the process, she provides lots of helpful examples of what NOT TO DO, as well as what TO DO both in terms of what kind of organization to create and how to get there. I found that the book added a great deal to my storehouse of case histories about what has been working and what has not as companies have sought to develop and improve Internet-based business models. Unlike most books about the Internet, this one was primarily based on lots of research with people at companies rather than lots of experience in using cool Web sites. The book is divided into three parts. The first section looks at how the Internet affects every business and person, the role of young people to date in advancing the changes, and why companies have to do more than just open a web site to be effective. Basically, the Internet means a fundamental change in at least part of every company's business model. For some companies, this is a complete change. For others, it is a partial, but significant change. Cisco Systems provides a good example. You can be a major provider of high technology products while having very little manufacturing youself. Dell Computer is another helpful example. You can have negative receivables and no inventory while manufacturing products to order in minutes. Anyone would like to be able to move profitably in these directions. The second section identifies the qualities that allow a company's culture to work well in e-commerce. Professor Kanter focuses here on the need to create generations of rapid change each of which is well received by the beneficiaries, how to create truly supportive and effective networks of partners, reconfiguring the business and organizational structure to improve the business model, and attracting and retaining the top talent needed to make these improvements. The third section looks at initiating and enabling the change process towards the model of e-effectiveness. The roles of leaders, organizations, and of individuals are identified . . . as well as the sources of friction and resistance. I thought that the book was exceptionally well done. It's weaknesses come from having taken on such a large topic and challenge. But Professor Kanter succeeds in most areas quite well. Those who work in dot com companies that are facing bankruptcy will not find enough here to help them sort through their issues. Those who want to establish a new dot com from scratch also will find this book to be useful, but not a complete resource for that purpose (as Professor Kanter warns in the book). The book was primarily researched while the dot com companies were flush with cash and valuations on the stock market were still quite high. So, although there are references to stocks falling after March 2000, the book reflects in many ways a world that doesn't exactly exist right now for dot com companies. For dotcom-enablers, they will get a few ideas about how to satisfy the need to keep revitalizing their business model. But most of this will not seem new to them, if they have been at all successful. For wannadots, this book will help lift the veil of how to get from here to there. The main benefit will be to help avoid problems that others have experienced. You can save tens of millions of dollars and start delivering benefits to your customers much sooner if you follow the change lessons here. The senior executives in these companies should be the prime beneficiaries of this book . . . the Harvard B-School grads of a few years ago, or more. Metaphors are very helpful for understanding new subjects. The metaphors here, although apt, are ones that many readers will not find to be very much within their experience. For that reason, the points will be a bit lost. For example, the idea of continuing innovating and creating rapid improvements is linked to what improvisational actors do. I have had some improvisational training, so this made sense to me (see Robert Lowe's book, Improvisation, Inc.). I do not know many corporate executives in large companies however who do have this experience. I suspect this metaphor will be lost on them. Some of the other metaphors also lack an experience base for most readers, as well. A potential weakness of this book for some readers is that they will not get enough information for how to identify ways to create more profitable and sustainable business models. To date, most Internet innovations have led to lower profits . . . not higher ones -- whether they came from dot coms, dotcom-enablers, or dotcome wannabes. If more skill is not applied in this important area of conceptualizing what the new structure of the business should become, you may evolve . . . but not into any place where you want to be. Reading this book today, you'd have to say that if you are not going to be a dotcom enabler, you'd better watch out.
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Summary: Good House Review
Review: The novel 'A Good House' written by Bonnie Burnard brings the characters alive and while I was reading about them it felt as if I knew the characters personally. The depth of the story is phenomenal. The emotions and the scenery that Burnard describes are incredible, it is written beautifully. When i started to read 'A Good House' I could picture where the story took place, the scenery, the family setting and the house where a lot of the story takes place. By the end of the story I had went through someone's family and observed watching the characters grown and the changing of communication between them. 'A Good House' will keep the readers attention and keep them wondering what will happen next. The book is definitely a reader. A good House takes place in Ontario. Burnard writes about the Chanber family who goes through hardships and throughout the book she documents the characters growing and changing lifestyles that occur through the years. There are many hardships that the family endures overtime- a mother dies, divorces, affairs, out of wedlock children and other encounter's that life brings. Burnard documents over six decades of the Canadian family. As Burnard writes she does so with such feeling and compassion that makes the reader feel for what the family is going through. A Good House is a well-written book that grabs the reader's attention from the beginning and the reader can easily visualize what is taking place. It is highly recommended!
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Summary: A serious wake up call
Review: This book combines an outstanding read with a serious wake-up call. It lays out clearly how established companies must address the revolutionary changes the internet has brought. It is one of the few texts on the new economy which is based on extensive research. The wisdom is rooted in fact and not fancy. If you are in an old-economy company (not a dotcommer) it makes for frightening reading. The internet provides a new imperative for change - to Evolve. However, compared with the re-engineering change programs of the 80's and early 90's this new imperative is insidious - the need for change is not so obvious - not driven by some foreign enemy or some financial downturn. The internet changes the basis for competing - but many companies cannot see the danger. In this book, Rosabeth Kanter clearly lays out the need for change. However, she goes much further, providing working examples of what has worked and what has not. She explains the good news - that the fundamentals of business, and in particular change management remain the same. However, she also articulates the dangers for those who do not embrace this new revolution with as much drive and energy as the crises which drove large change programs in the past. As a manager in an old-economy company, this book both frightened and excited me. Fear that we will not embrace the new dawn and excitement at the prospects if we do. It should be compulsory reading for managers at all levels throughout the established economy.
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