Customer Reviews

Intranet Business Strategies

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I should have noticed that the book had not been updated since 1996 (an ETERNITY in "Web Years"). The information was useful in a general since, but I feel like I paid to much. I should have just picked it up at the library.

It started out well, with a description of an Intranet and where it all came from. It then degenerates into a poor version of people management book. The title of the book "Intranet Business Strategies" is a misnomer. There are no strategies at all, rather a set of high level, very glib statements about the fact that "you should sell the Intranet internally" (where else would you sell it?) and "the four stages of a team".

However, THE most patronising thing about this book is that it details meeting agendas and schedules - something I would hope even the poorest of managers should be able to work out by themselves.

Perhaps I was hoping for too much in a book called "Intranet Business Strategies", and so the only redeeming feature of this book is that if you know nothing about an Intranet (from basic people management, technology, or perhaps even putting an agenda together for a meeting), then this is the book for you.

My personal recommendation is that you buy a Internet (not Intranet) technology book, understand the basics of that and work with a partner to do the rest. Its cheaper and a lot less frustrating.

I found a great deal of the content to be superficial and there was also a significant amount of redundancy throughout the book. A VERY beginner-oriented book. That may may well justify the redundancy and emphasis on (shallow) breadth rather than depth. While I still have not found any other books that address what this book attempts to address, because of the reasons cited above, I can only give it a modest recommendation.

Great book for companies looking for an approach to getting on the Web. Excellent case studies of companies (big ones) that have done it

This book focusses on the processes to follow in organising the initial setup of an intranet in a organisation. Hence its most useful to those people in medium to large firms with quite formal IT development processes. I used it as input to writing a feasibility study and found it a valuable source for the development approach. Its significant value lies in the fact its one of the few Intranet "how-to" books which tackles the often-neglected but very necessary topics of getting your $, winning over management, organising your team,etc - all the "peopleware" stuff rather than the in-depth technical programming which can be easily found in other books.

Just writing to compliment you on your excellent book - Intranet Business Strategies. I picked up a copy when I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago. Right on the mark.... I'm Managing Director of a Sports Photographic Agency in the UK - total staff 40 including 10 photographers travelling the world with Powerbooks, scanners and modems. The book helped crystalise my ideas - and last week spent half a day making up an Intranet myself from simple HTML pages - demos to Management Team have had brilliant response. The EMPICS IntraWEB opens on Friday ... and I'm sure it's going to be a hit..... Off to buy your Groupware book on the WWW now!!!!