This wonderfully written book by two leading IT specialists is so chock-a-block with colorful metaphors that one might think that there really is a future for people who believe that the internet is an evolutionary - not a revolutionary - gain in society and business.
'Where do you want to go today by staying at home'.
They lament the focus the on technology over information in IT that "pushes aside all the fuzzy stuff - context, background, history..." as we deify the channel.
Without a sense of community the knowledge and information that creates and sustains the business is lost and unfocused. Relying on frail and ever changing technology as the backbone of a business is a recipe for failure. Therefore the new depends on the stability of the old to succeed.
However knowledge is nearly worthless without the mechanisms - both technological and social - to disseminate it. Knowledge is not a commodity to pass around like a shrimp ring that can be weighed, shipped or mined.
Thus the information and knowledge structures of a business are based on two, distinct "I" "T" functions: networks, the collective knowledge of an organization and; communities, the informal collectives that filter, modify and utilize that information. And information flows along the "topography" of practice and routine in the organization. The key is to balance free form business structures with formal organizational practices.
"To play with the boundaries - of firms, networks, communities, regions, and institutions - as innovation increasingly demands, requires first acknowledging them.
If you can only read one business book on the future of IT, this is the one.
