Rating: 
Summary: Strategic Detonations
Review: What has been destroyed? Given the fact that anyone who has a computer can now communicate with anyone else who also has a computer, any time, anywhere, there has indeed been an "explosion in connectivity" which we are only now beginning to understand. Simultaneously, amidst various detonations, a "tidal wave of universal connectivity is melting the glue bonding economic activities together." This is an appropriate, indeed a very clever title. I am reminded of Negroponte's Being Digital which offers a probing examination of the "information highway" as a means by which to transmit, globally, "weightless bits at the speed of light." Because bits are "the DNA of information", Negroponte's analysis of their nature and impact helps us to benefit from as well as understand a "revolution" which has only begun...the same "revolution" to which Evans and Wurster also direct their attention.They do a brilliant job of explaining "how the new economics of information transforms strategy." The reader is advised (in the Preface) that these "new economics" are NOT a "qualitatively new body of principles"; rather, a "rebalancing of existing economic forces when one of them (the informational glue) is subtracted." I was especially impressed by the authors' probing analysis of various forces at work as a new global balance evolves. Here is a brief excerpt from Chapter 2: "The economics of information and the economics of things have been tied together like participants in a three-legged race. Every business is consequently a compromise between the economics of information and the economics of things. Separating them breaks their mutual compromise and potentially releases enormous economic value." Sound familiar? Immediately after reading this passage, I thought about those involved in the Manhattan Project when they realized, for the first time, how much energy could be released by nuclear fission. At the end of this and the other chapters, the authors provide what they call (what else?) "Sound Bits." They are especially well-done as they summarize key points but lose much of their value unless you have read the material which precedes then. In so many books, end-of-chapter "key points" are all you need to read. Not so with this book. For Evans and Wurster, deconstruction and disintermediation will be major forces as the "informational glue" melts. As a result of their impact, as noted earlier, there will be a "rebalancing of existing economic forces" in organizations which require a different kind of leadership: "The traditional, hierarchically defined roles of leadership become obsolete. But there remain two things that leaders, and only leaders, can do": creature a culture which is a "purposeful community", and, formulate strategies which will nourish and sustain that community. I agree with Evans and Wurster that each organization's culture should serve as the essence of identity, of management, of leadership. I also agree with their concluding observation: "In a world of impersonal technical change, that is a refreshingly human thought." If your organization lacks such a culture, if it does not understand how the new economics are transforming strategy, here is an invaluable source for information, analysis, and wisdom...also for inspiration.
Rating: 
Summary: Overated
Review: Although once you cut through the authors esoteric and obtuse writing style this book manages to make some good points. The weakness in this mini-tome is in its feeble attempt to create new terms and labels for the "e" generation. Terms like "disintermediation" (this word doesn't exist anywhere but in the minds of the authors) and the appellation "navigators" belongs more to a Star Trek scenario. The authors also seem to be unaware that we do not live in a linear world. In most of the world today, you need a "navigator" just to find food and avoid the violence and mayhem. Messers' Evans and Worster need to spend a little more time in the real world, not in the cloistered halls of Harvard. D W Ross
Rating: 
Summary: More descriptive than prescriptive
Review: A great deal of the book focuses on explaining how the new information economy is major force driving changes to the traditional ways of several industries. But at the same time, it seems to lack in the prescriptive qualities that would help make sense in our understanding of all the information that is available from the present pool of e-commerce literature. Makes a good introductory reading on the impacts of e-commerce.
Rating:
Summary: Sharp, Simplistic and extremely valuable
Review: This is the greatest book about e-commerce I have ever read. Written by two vice-presidents of The Boston Consulting Group, it provides a very sharp insight into the world of e-commerce. Amid the complexity of e-business models, the rationale that made BCG one of the most prominent consulting firms, makes everything very simple. This book is written for everyone that shares an interest in e-commerce.
Rating:
Summary: Traditional Business to e Business
Review: Being a sales executive that is making the transition from an "old economy" company to a "new economy" company, I found the book very helpful. Understanding what information will mean in the future and how it will, in some cases, be much more valuable than the physical products being sold is a concept that will be important in the future. I recommend it to any business person that wants to understand how the internet can impact their current business model.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding Current and Upcoming Business Change
Review: If you are working in a high-tech company fully leveraging the web, then much of this book is probably old news to you. If you are working in a company that is successful doing things the "old way" with no new competitors on the horizon, then this book is probably written in the equivalent of a foreign language. For the rest, who understand change is happening on multiple fronts, but don't fully understand all that is at work, this book provides great insight. Particularly useful is the way it provides examples of changes in multiple dimensions - not only richness and reach that are initially presented, but also other directions such as the movement to affiliations. The speculation about coming deconstruction of companies where existing pieces of the business are not as good as niche competitors in delivering value is food for thought.
Rating:
Summary: Blown away!
Review: Alvin and Heidi Troffler's trilogy, beginning with the "The Third Wave" and ending with Poer Shift presaged much of the current thinking related here. Virginia Postrel's-the Future and it's Enemies" and Reg Whitaker's "The End of Privacy" each view the awesome phenomenom of explosive technology through their own lens. "Blown to Bits" is the view through the lens of commerce. Each provides a piece of the puzzle. Ultimately, we change as well. The advent of terms such as exponential, dis-intermediation and de-construction attempts to put a quantifiable face on what may be resolutely unquantifiable. Faster and faster-new, newer, newest, change upon change till we are all heaving for air on the sidelines, the frentic and unrelenting pace obscuring a deepening inability to assimilate. Who has time to ponder every cause and effect, every consequence intended or otherwise? One author has succinctly described a possible destination, Jerry Furland, "Transfer-the end of the beginning". Interesting and troubling times.
Rating: 
Summary: blown to bits
Review: Once you get past the egghead literary construction and the techno speak this book is a viable read and probably worth the twenty something bucks with freight. I did not begin to grasp the message until I was close to the end of the book. Reach and richness is the story. How can a company reach the most number of customers with the greatest quality of service. The information highway of course. The companies who want to be competitive and survive need to maximize their information technology. There is discucssion here of ways and means including freuently asked questions boxes and what are called sound bit boxes which discuss the implications of disintermediation and deconstruction in the new economy. I plan to read this book several more times to really grasp the message. Overall the book could use more concrete examples and less "business" literary style. It is almost as garbled as Bill Gates book, Business at the speed of thought. Not quite.
Rating:
Summary: Great Ideas, Bloated Prose
Review: This is no doubt a timely and insightful book. It does suffer from what many management/consulting books suffer from, convoluted sentences and polysyllabic word choices. Evans and Wurster, economists by training, and now BCG consultants, do have something to offer, however. Their analysis of many industries is piercingly accurate as to their value chain and profit zone (e.g., auto, brokerage). The material areas the authors revolve the economics of things v. economics of info (when the former is sold it's gone; when the latter is sold, it can be sold again and again at a negligible cost); (2) the idea of reach v. richness seems to be the linchpin of their profound tome and is perfused throughout the book. This of people that can share a piece of information is inversely related to the quality of that information. Witness a salesman's pitch v. a direct mail letter - the former has greater richness and adaptability, while the latter has greater reach but less richness. The book ends with some advice for businesses. According to the authors, the new digital game involves the application of applied economics, refined segmentation, and the analysis of value chain information flows. The authors encourage businesses to be contrarian, pre-emptive, and experimental. I agree that the HBR article is more parsimonious and lucid. Nevertheless, this is a solid book in the genre, and the authors clearly know this developing area. A worthy read overall.
Rating:
Summary: Searching for the intersection of Strategy and Information
Review: Your reaction to this book will depend very much on the training and perspective you bring and why you want to read it. If you are much like Charles Ferguson, the author of the excellent "High Stakes, No Prisoners," you already have intimate knowledge of this industry and its players, AND you have a strong grasp of both technology and economics. The marginal gain from this book will be de minimus, but you will appreciate its clarity and scholarship. I think I understand more about business strategy than an average bear, but I also believe that a bunch of children are creating a new reality that is destroying those models, and I began reading some books--this was one of them--to help me try to understand what that will mean for business strategy. I found the book valuable. While I think some of the authors' opinions--consider the hypothesis at the top of page 107--beg to be tested empirically, the references are both current and relevant, the book is clear, and I found it thoughtfully done. You don't have to be an academic to read it. The authors don't use much jargon that they don't explain, and they go to some lengths to avoid using words like isoquant. I'd contrast this book with the very popular "Killer App," which I found trivial. "Blown to Bits" is superior in its clarity and breadth, and in the quality and relevance of its cited source material. I mention the contrast only because you may tend to listen more carefully to people who know a lot about what they are talking about, and my impression is that Evans and Wurster do. If you are reasonably well-trained or experienced in business strategy, but feel like you need to better integrate the transformation to an information-based economy into your models and your thinking, I recommend this book.
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