Amazon.com Review
Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer look at how three factors in the wired world--speed, connectivity, and intangibles--are driving the increasing rate of change in the business marketplace. Citing examples that include Mercedes-Benz automobiles, Otis elevators, and even Amazon.com, Davis and Meyer interpret how development in these three areas is causing the boundaries of other formerly distinct categories to blur. Once business tended to be either products or services. But what about a box that tracks your car if stolen? You are buying a product--a piece of electronics--but are actually receiving a service--the ability to track a stolen automobile. The distinction between buyers and sellers is also blurring; for example, in grocery stores vendors buy shelf space from the retailer but also sell their products to the store. Even the distinction between work time and home time is blurring with the development of Internet-powered home offices, where time can be used more flexibly. According to Davis and Meyer, blur should be embraced because it will only increase. The authors wrap up with 50 ways to add productive blur to your business and 10 ways to adapt to blur in your personal life.
--Elizabeth Lewis
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
A feel-good guide to doing business in the post-industrial age. A new economy is emerging, say the authors, every bit as world-changing as that created by the Industrial Revolution, and they call this new economy BLUR. Its characterized by Speed, Intangibles, and Connectivity. Speed is the shrinkage of time through near-instantaneous communication and computation. Connectivity is the shrinkage of space with the advent of the Web, E-mail, beepers, and other media of communication. Intangibles are values without mass, most importantly knowledge and its mobility, made possible through Speed and Connectivity. Throw away your business economic texts, say Davis and Meyerthe world of BLUR makes them obsolete. Companies prosper by not owning vast amounts of productive capacity. Nike, for instance, is a sort of Seinfeld of the business world, making nothing, but prospers by selling image and design. In the world of BLUR, work and home become one; consumers sell and sellers buy; workers become entrepreneurs selling their skills temporarily to the highest bidder and then moving on; competitors cooperate. The only certainty is uncertainty, but if economies, companies, and individuals embrace this uncertainty, and think creatively about and within it, they will prosper. The authors are on to something here; they've seemingly caught the Zeitgeist. Yet in their enthusiasm they may overstate just how BLURred (as they say) the economy actually is. Yes, Nike sells image, but somebody is making those expensive sneakers, and they are not to be heard from here. Consumers sell information back to producers, which they in turn use to improve what they sell, but does that fundamentally change patterns of concentrated economic control? And while we can buy groceries over the Internet, how many people do? (The book is devoid of statistical or quantitative analysis.) As a guide to surviving in the new business world, this is most intriguing and entertaining. As a careful analysis of what's really going on, it falls short. (illustrations, not seen) --
Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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