Extraordinary Contribution to National Sanity and Security,
Review: Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, The Future of Professional Services
5 Star, Best Practices in ManagementDeceptively Simply, Seriously Valuable,
Ross Dawson
A great deal of work went into conceptualizing and crafting this book, and I give very high marks to the author, who does a really superb job of integrating insights from knowledge management, information technology, cognitive modeling, and client relationship or account management. This book makes the jump from airplane reading, to “hold and read several times more.”
At the heart of the book, and many appear to miss this on the first reading, is the author's distinction between commoditized information services and differentiated information services. The first, aided by automation, is on a downward spiral in terms of both value and pricing, and competition is fierce. The second, partially aided by automation but ultimately being unique for rising to a higher level of knowledge service delivery that can only be done by expert humans, is where value pricing and differentiation can be found, and where professional services need to go if they are to remain profitable.
The second urgent and valuable insight the author shares with us is the co-evolutionary nature of a service that evolves through constant knowledge transfer to the client and constant co-creation of new knowledge as the competitive advantage; and a very deep and broad relationship with the client at all levels of both organizations. One leads to the other, the other leads to finding new business with the same client, and the cycle repeats itself. This insight is especially relevant to all those who are using information technology to force single human account managers to handle more and more accounts remotely, all the while “losing touch” with their clients for lack of time to make the personal visit or personal telephone call. This is also explicitly contrary to the prevailing “black box” model where knowledge is withheld as proprietary–the author makes it clear that in this new era, withheld knowledge is much less valuable and much less survivable–this is a dying model.
Among the sections of the book that I found especially worthwhile, partly for their elegance of expression and partly because they represent a considerable professionalism in distilling vast arrays of writing by others, were those that itemized the seven processes for adding value to the client relationship by adding converting information into knowledge (filtering, validation, analysis, synthesis, presentation, ease of access and use, customization); the rare simplicity of the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge and how to communicate both kinds of knowledge; the brief but sufficient discussion of four key humans in the loop: the senior representative, the relationship coordinator, the knowledge specialist, and the knowledge customer; and the more general discussion of the various means for communicating knowledge value to the client, both in terms of channels and in terms of events including scenarios and wargaming.
Contrary to the publicity, this is not a case study book, although the several “gray block” inserts are both helpful and credible. This book is an executive primer for managing value in the 21st Century, and it merits several readings, not one.
Where the book falls short, and it may be that this is deliberate and better left for another book, is in the section on pricing knowledge services. Despite a fine summary of the kinds of pricing that are used, from time and materials (both the predominant means and the least profitable) to retainer to contingency to commissions and tenders, one is left feeling that neither the author nor his otherwise excellent sources have really come to grips with the fact that clients are still mired in an industrial-age financial mindset that values fixed goods and is not yet ready to pay for intangible knowledge goods. My own research suggests that fully half of the competition for knowledge professionals comes from client middle managers and senior sales or production experts who believe that they know everything they need to know to make good decisions–the other half comes from niche providers of very fragmented services, from the aggregators of online information (Factiva, Lexis-Nexis, DIALOG) to the market research firms (FIND/SVP, Fuld, SIS) to private investigative groups (Arkin, Kroll, IGI) to academic consultants (Harvard, UT) to localized information brokers listed in the Burwell Directory…and many many other sources including commercial imagery and Russian military maps of third world regions that most knowledge specialists–as well as their clients–overlook completely. Somewhere in all this mix, the big accounting and legal firms are trying to leverage their access to clients by becoming portals to global knowledge, and they are *not* delivering the integrated value they should–a value that can only come when the author's wisdom becomes conventional, and every professional services person knows how to define the question, discover and validate the sources, discriminate and distill the many sources into a value-added compelling presentation, and do so in timely easy to use fashion.
Some will be deceived by the very easy to read and well-organized sections into thinking this book is slightly superficial. That is not the case. This is a very well researched book that represents enormous value-added because the author has creatively distilled and organized at least four separate literatures, and done so in a fashion that will repay multiple readings of the book by the new standard: at least twice the value of your time taken for each reading.
Review: The Cultural Creatives–How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
5 Star, Civil Society, Culture, Research, DemocracyNot Yet a Movement, But Showing Serious Potential,
This book should be read together with Imagine: What America Could be in the 21st century, edited by Marianne Williamson. Taken together, the two books are inspirational while still being practical.
Cultural Creatives as a book, and some of the other reviews, tend to over-sell the success of the emergence of an alternative lifestyle to Traditionalists (stereotyped as somewhat red neckish and religious rightists) and Moderns (stereotyped as ravish the earth anything-goes corporate carpetbaggers). The reality is that there are as many “cultural creatives” as there are people with disabilities in the United States–50 million. Not one quarter of the population, as one reviewer claims.
Having said that, by way of somber stage-setting, I cannot say enough good things about this book. It should be required reading for every citizen, every student, and every public official. In a very real sense, this book strikes me as a truly seminal work that could help millions of individuals reframe their personal connection to one another, to their Republic, and to the earth.
This is neither a tree-hugger book nor a mantras R us book. This book provides a thoughtful review of how different movements–first the environmental movement, then the human rights movement, and finally the consciousness movement–have come together to define an alternative lifestyle and alternative paradigm for political and economic and social relationships in the larger context of a sustainable “whole” earth.
I found this book motivational and meaningful at both a personal level and a larger national level. At the personal level, its detailed and well-organized description of fifteen very distinct aspects of a “cultural creative” lifestyle helped me understand–as it has helped many others–that there is actually a category of people who have come to grips with and found solutions that enrich their lives–and this explains my great disappointment that the book does not offer a “resources” section at the end. I would have been very glad to discover, for example, a “Cultural Creative” journal or magazine that combined a strong book review section, art and culture, a consumer reports section tailored to the higher standards of the “CCs”, new innovations in home restoration and remodeling, vacation options known to be attractive to CCs, etcetera.
At the higher political level, I found the book constructive and just this side of a tipping point. An increasing number of people, all of them generally outside of Washington and not associated with Wall Street, clearly have some strong positive values and a real commitment to achieving reform through “many small actions”. What this group has lacked is a means of communicating and orchestrating itself on a scale sufficient to demand respect from politicians and corporation. The Internet now provides such a vehicle–and as the Internet explodes from 3.5M people worldwide to 3.5B people worldwide, in the next ten years, I am convinced that Cultural Creatives may finally come into their own as a new form of global political party. Cultural Creatives would sign the Kyoto Treaty (and know what it is); Cultural Creatives would demand a 100% increase–from a half-penny a dollar to a full penny a dollar–in America's foreign diplomatic and humanitarian assistance budget–and Cultural Creatives could conceivably give the Republican Party a real beating in the next Congressional elections if President Bush persists in breaking his campaign vow on reducing carbon emissions. A peaceful revolution in our national agenda may truly be a near-term reality.
This is not a book where a summary can do it justice. It needs to be experienced at an individual level and ideally also at a community level, where it could be understood and accepted as a common point of reference for individual choosing to live “in relation” to one another and to the world, at a level much higher and more satisfying than our current arrangements. When this book makes it to the best-seller list, America will have matured and there will be hope for our children's future quality of life.
Other books along these lines:
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books)
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Review: Imagine–What America Could Be in the 21st Century
5 Star, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Future, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)Vastly More Practical (and Political) Than Title Suggests,
I almost did not buy this book, and I say that because an awful lot of really smart folks might be inclined to turn away on the basis of the title and the possibility that this is a fairy tale wishful-thinking la la land kind of book. It is not. It is practical (and political), it is enriching, and it is over-all a very high quality endeavor that has been well executed.
Four “great truths” are articulated many times over across the various readings, and they merit listing here:
1) Campaign finance reform is the absolute non-negotiable first step that must precede every other reform. Until the people can reassert their great common sense for the common good, and restore the true democratic tradition, nothing else will happen.
2) Neighborhoods are the bedrock of both democracy and sustainable development, and we have spent fifty years building in the wrong direction. New legal and economic incentives must be found to redirect both urban and suburban real estate management back in the direction of self-contained neighborhoods.
3) Local production of everything, from electricity to food to major goods like automobiles) appears to be a pre-requisite for deconflicting high quality of life needs from limited resource availability. The book includes several very intelligent discussions of how this might come about.
4) Networking makes everything else possible, and by this the book means electronic networking. I was especially fascinated by some of the examples of near-real-time sharing that electronic networking makes possible–everything from a neighborhood car to scheduled hand-me-downs of winter coats from one family to another. We have not progressed one mile down the road of what the Internet makes possible at a personal and neighborhood level, and I would recommend this book for that perspective alone.
The creative editorial role must be applauded. From the identification and recruitment of the contributors, to the selection of the photographs that each tell their own story, to the quality of the paper used to create the book, all testify to the competence and knowledge of the editor.
Lastly, it merits comment that the book serves as a very fine calling card from something called The Global Renaissance Alliance, a spiritually-oriented group that nurtures Citizens Circles and uses a web site to provide pointers to resources and other like-minded folk.
Review: Insider’s Guide to the Future
1 Star, FutureNot a Book and Not by Insider's,
The title is misleading, and most people who buy this pamphlet misrepresented as a book are going to be very disappointed. This a 40 page stream of conscious review of various categories of life that lacks footnotes, a bibligraphy, or an index.
Based on my own broad experience and friendship with futurists of note, I consider this specific paper to be interesting if you don't read a lot and want a very shallow overview of numerous areas in the time it takes to fly from one state to another, but I find it very disturbing to read randomized references to ideas that I have seen developed and documented by others in a much more thorough fashion over the past 25 years or so.
Review: The Cluetrain Manifesto–The End of Business as Usual
4 Star, Best Practices in ManagementOne Great Thought Beat to Death 190 Times,
There is one great thought in this book, i.e. that the Web makes it possible for everyone to participate in the “great conversation”, and that it is the summing and slicing of these conversations that will drive business in the 21st Century.
The authors are quite correct, and helpful, when they point out that in the aggregate, the combined preferences, insights, and purchasing power of all Web denizens is vastly more valuable and relevant to business decisions about production, quality, and services than any “push” marketing hype or engineering presumptions about what people might need.
Sadly, the authors' neither provide an integrated understanding of the true terrain over which the great conversation takes place, nor do they provide any substantive suggestions for how web content managers might improve our access to the knowledge and desires that are now buried within the web of babel. Their cute “tell a story” and equally cute advice to have big boxes for customer stories in the forms provided for input, simply do not cut it with me.
This book is a 5 for the one great idea, a 2 for beating the idea to death, a 3 for presentation, and a 4 overall because it was just good enough to keep me reading to the last page.
Review: The Collaborative Enterprise–Why Links Across The Corporation Often Fail And How To Make Them Work
4 Star, Best Practices in ManagementWorth Mulling Over,
This is not a book that calls for underlining and highlighting, but it definitely has value as a basis for reflecting on various aspects of collaboration, and the failure of collaboration, within enterprises.
The book is written strictly from the perspective of people and perceptions. It does not have a technical or a financial side and this was disappointing. It would have been more useful to have a book that fully integrated human, technical, and financial success stories and failure stories to present an integrated picture of collaborative work principles in a global economy using the Internet as the backbone for collaborative work.
The book is well-written, the figures are useful, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to sit quietly on an airplane and think about the authors' subtitle: why links between business units often fail, and how to make them work.