Change to Strange Create a great organization by building a strange workforce Daniel M. Cable The core idea at the heart of this book is very powerful: if you want to create an extraordinary organisation, you won't achieve it with an ordinary workforce. Instead, you will need staff who are "strange", obsessed ...
Blog category: Book & product reviews
January 6, 2008
Book review: Strategy and the Fat Smoker
Strategy and the Fat Smoker David Maister, 2008 David Maister is the undisputed guru of professional services firms, and this is his greatest work yet. The premise is very simple: every professional firm has much the same vision, strategy and operating principles. Yet few firms ever deliver on these promises. This is ...
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August 19, 2007
Book review: The Myths of Innovation
I've just had my book review of The Myths of Innovation published on Boxes and Arrows. To quote: Innovation is a hot topic at the moment. Actually, innovation has been a big thing for last hundred years or more, but perhaps we needed the profusion of business magazines and books ...
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July 2, 2007
Book review: Organising Knowledge — Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness
Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness Patrick Lambe, 2007 Taxonomies are often surrounded by an air of reverence and mystique. Traditionally seen as the domain of librarians, recordkeepers and botanists, they are now hot property in business circles, but no better understood. Patrick Lambe's book sets out to systematically address these issues, ...
February 3, 2007
Book review: The User is Always Right
The User is Always Right:A practical guide to creating and using personas for the webSteve Mulder and Ziv Yaar This is a book drawn from the experience of having created many personas for a wide range of different organisations. More than that, the authors have clearly been creating great personas ...
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March 25, 2005
Book review: The Heart of Change
The Heart of ChangeJohn P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen Before starting to review this title, I'm going to go back to the earlier title that outlined the fundamental change process advocated by John Kotter: Leading Change. My review of this highlighted the practical value of this book, ...
March 19, 2005
Book review: What’s the Big Idea?
What's the Big Idea?Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak The concept of this book is a fascinating one. Rather than just looking at a single "great idea", it explores the "marketplace of great ideas", investigating what makes a good idea, how to select these ideas, and how best to put them ...
February 17, 2005
Book review: The Content Management Handbook
The Content Management HandbookMartin White The best thing about the Content Management Handbook is that it provides something that has been missing for some time: a simple and clear overview of the whole field of content management. While other books have delved in-depth into specific aspects of content management, Martin ...
September 8, 2004
Book review: The E-Myth Revisited
The E-Myth RevisitedMichael E. Gerber This was one of the books on my reading list with the aim of continuing to improve the way Step Two Designs operates. As a small business, there is the ever-present challenge of managing our current operations, while positioning ourselves for further growth. This book started well, ...
August 15, 2004
Book review: Leading Change
Leading ChangeJohn P. Kotter It is widely recognised that organisations are under greater pressure than ever before to adapt to meet new conditions and challenges within their marketplaces. This has spawned many change management projects, reorganisations and strategic realignments. Most of these have failed. This book takes a much-needed look at ...
February 29, 2004
Book review: Observing the User Experience
Observing the User Experience Mike Kuniavsky This is a book I definitely enjoyed reading. More importantly, it provides a practical and pragmatic perspective on how to research user needs, in the context of a broader user-centred design process. I would certainly recommend it to anyone new to the field of usability techniques. The ...
July 29, 2003
Book review: Information architecture, blueprints for the web
Information architecture Blueprints for the web Christina Wodtke Christina is the founder of boxesandarrows, the best information architecture (IA) resource site on the web. My thanks go to her for creating this site, and also for writing this very useful book. Right from the outset, Christina makes it clear that this book isn't ...
July 27, 2003
Book review: Practical Intranet Development
Practical Intranet Development John Colby, et al This book suffers seriously from a case of split personality. While the importance of non-technical (people) issues is highlighted throughout, it remains a book written by techies for techies. This book seems to propagate the attitude that users are a difficult factor in the project, to ...
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April 18, 2003
Book review: paper prototyping
Jakob Nielsen is back on form with a review and commentary on paper prototyping. To quote: Paper prototyping isn't used because people don't think they will get enough information from a method that is so simple and so cheap. It feels like you're cheating if you attempt to improve your ...
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March 10, 2003
Book review: Web Content Management, A Collaborative Approach
Web Content ManagementA Collaborative ApproachRussell Nakano It has been said that this book presents content management the "Interwoven way". This is not surprising, considering the author was the co-founder and key designer of the Interwoven TeamSite CMS. This, in itself, is not an issue if the book presents technology-neutral insight into ...
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February 2, 2003
Review: Using Narrative in Organisational Change
A while ago, I was sent a review copy of a multimedia CD titled Using Narrative in Organisational Change, containing a full day masterclass by David Snowden of the IBM Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity. This is a full multimedia presentation that explores the knowledge management approach known as storytelling. ...
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February 2, 2003
Book review: Content Management Systems
Published by Glasshaus, Content Management Systems (Dave Addey, James Ellis, Phil Suh & David Thiemecke) is very much written by web developers for web developers. The casual, coloquial style of writing should appeal to those readers looking for the real information, without all the hype or jargon. The book starts by ...
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October 16, 2002
Review: The Knowledge Management Fieldbook
I have finally finished reading The Knowledge Management Fieldbook by Wendi R. Bukowitz and Ruth L. Williams. Yes, this book has been out for quite a while now (published 2000), but I have had other things on my reading list. This book provides an introduction to the many different knowledge management ...
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October 3, 2002
Martin White’s review of the Polar Bear book
Martin White has written a brief review of the new edition of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. To quote: Recently I have recommended a number of intranet-related handbooks, but if I had to have just one book in my consulting briefcase it would be this one. The authors ...
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October 1, 2002
A review of “Content Management Systems”
Paola DI MAIO has written a review of the recently-released title Content Management Systems. To quote: Overall, the book tackles crucial technical issues that anyone involved in a CMS must face, but the pitch is accessible to most readers interested in the highly complex , and highly fascinating world of ...
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