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Week of June 21 - June 25, 2004Welcome to the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship and e-News, an electronic newsletter sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City for followers of the entrepreneurial economy. Through e-News, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving the innovation economy. Please feel free to share this with friends and colleagues. To subscribe, visit www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde/join/ Did you know that links to the day's entrepreneurship stories from across the nation and around the world are posted each weekday at www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde? Bookmark it and stay informed about the latest entrepreneurship news. Current and archived issues of e-News are available online at www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde/news/enews.htm |
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Just in time for your trip to the beach, the lake, or the mountains, NDE e-News is here with our Summer Books issue. The books listed below aren’t likely to push Bill Clinton’s memoirs from the best-seller list, but they are interesting and thoughtful reads for those of us with an entrepreneurial bent. All books listed have been published in late 2003 or 2004 and are available at established booksellers, both on-line and in the store. |
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Thomas W. Malone, The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 2004 Thomas Malone has been the director of MIT’s “Inventing the 21st Century Organizations” program for many years, so he has thought long and hard about how technology is changing the ways we live and work. His basic message is that decentralization will create both new challenges and opportunities. Malone contends that the old command and control system will be replaced by “coordinate and cultivate.” Under this new model, workers will be more independent, looking more like free-lancers than employees. But, this system creates challenges for managers who will need to share power and resources, and more importantly, find new ways to coordinate these teams of independent workers. This is not a ten-step guide to managing in the new economy—the book is more of an analytical look at these new organizational structures and their impacts. |
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Nicholas Carr, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 2004. In 2003, Nicholas Carr ticked off a lot of people when he wrote a Harvard Business Review article that claimed that information technology (IT) had become a commodity and was no longer essential to a firm’s competitive advantage. That article has now been expanded into a book, but the basic thesis remains the same. Carr argues that executives must now treat IT as simply another part of the business; it should no longer drive a company’s strategy. This also means that firms should spend less on IT, and that claim certainly doesn’t sit well with IT companies. Even if you disagree with Carr, this is a provocative book that will make you think about where IT fits in with your business or your local economy. |
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David Bornstein, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2004. How to Change the World profiles nine incredible social entrepreneurs working in various countries around the globe. Among those profiled are Bill Drayton, founder of the US-based Ashoka, and Veronica Khosa, an AIDS worker in South Africa. The stories are very compelling and inspiring. If you want to see how social entrepreneurship can change the world and how one person can make a difference, this book will inspire you. |
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Sharon Whitely, Connie Duckworth, and Kathy Elliott, The Old Girl’s Network: Insider Advice for Women Building a Business in a Man’s World. New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003. We regularly cover the boom in women-owned businesses here at NDE E-News. This book should be a useful read for women who are seeking to build high-growth ventures. The authors have been entrepreneurs and angel investors and offer frank, no-holds-barred advice for women who want to pursue this path. The book is written in an accessible, how-to format. Topics include exit strategies, raising capital, and networking. The book also includes self-assessment tests, and templates for key forms and documents. |
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Lindy Woodhead, War Paint: Madame Helena Rubenstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden, Their Lives, their Times, and their Rivalry. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2004. In addition to The Old Girl’s Network, aspiring women entrepreneurs might also enjoy this dual biography of Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden. Both women grew up in poverty, and were present at the creation of the modern cosmetics industry in the late 19th century. They were not only great entrepreneurs; they were also interesting characters. And, their rivalry was intense. This is a fun and interesting book that will not only teach you a lot about these two powerful women, but also about the emerging consumer culture that developed in the early 20th century. |
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Stephen Spinelli, Robert M. Rosenberg, and Sue Birley, Franchising: Path to Wealth Creation. New York: Prentice Hall, 2003. When thinking about entrepreneurship, we often fail to fully appreciate that franchising can and should be an important part of the discussion. Many wildly successful businesses, such as Jiffy Lube (which was co-founded by Spinelli, one of the book’s authors), were built as franchises. If you’re thinking about this path, you should think about this book. It is a very useful how-to guide that touches many of the key issues around franchising. |
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