Tracking e-business trends

Tracking e-business trends For readers wanting to keep up to date with e-business developments, this chapter recommends publications and websites that are worth dipping into from time to

Tracking e-business trends

For readers wanting to keep up to date with e-business developments, this chapter recommends publications and websites that are worth dipping into from time to time:

BBC news online

Good coverage of mainstream technology-related issues

www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/default.stm

CIO Magazine: The E-Business Research Center

Examines the current state and future directions of conducting commerce on the internet through articles, events, discussion groups and informational links

www.cio.com

eCommerce Web Center

Good all round US e-commerce site full of good marketing tips plus some worthwhile links

www.ecominfocenter.com

Economist

The best single source of information about what is happening in the world A mainstream publication but one that will take on some big topics from time to time, and one whose take on the e-business is variably insightful and clear-eyed

www.economist.com

Fast Company

A US-published monthly magazine that has been an essential read since it started up in 1996 Of late, though, the content – while still excellent – has been swamped by increasing volumes of advertising The companion website is just about the best free site around on e-business and the future world of work (it also carries material not found in the magazine)

www.fastcompany.com/home.html

Financial Times

Of all the UK dailies, The Financial Times provides the best in-depth

coverage of IT and work-related issues Well worth keeping an eye out for their occasional information technology surveys

www.ft.com

Fucked Company

An irreverent spoof of Fast Company that, like the very best

Dilbert-cartoons, uses humor as a vehicle for revealing some painful truths about working in the e-business

www.fuckedcompany.com

Gilder Technology Report

Anybody interested in the present and future impact of technology

on the US and world economy will find Gilder’s articles an intrigu-ing set of appetizers from this seminal thinker and iconoclast Not always easy to understand but worth making the effort

www.gildertech.com/index.asp

Harvard Business Review

Still the most authoritative business bi-monthly on the block It has tended in the past to be more mainstream than truly groundbreak-ing in its coverage of business issues That said, HBR has responded

well to the challenge to traditional business thinking posed by the e-business, and recent issues have generally contained two or three relevant articles Also, if you are interested in getting the lowdown

on forthcoming books from Harvard’s publishing wing several months before publication, the magazine consistently trails major books with articles from the authors in question The website provides an overview of the contents of the magazine – very limited free content these days but the executive summaries are there and they are often all you need

www.hbsp.harvard.edu/home.html

(The) Information Economy

This website is overseen by economist Hal Varian, co-author of

Infor-mation Rules, and lists hundreds of papers, works in progress and

links to other information economy websites An almost over-whelming resource but one that hasn’t been bettered for thoroughness

www.sims.berkeley.edu/resources/infoecon/

New Media Knowledge

A publicly funded body based at the University of Westminster which analyzes and facilitates the growth of the UK’s digital media industries

www.nmk.co.uk/

New Scientist

Important science and technology stories will often appear here first New Scientist also gives good coverage to emerging thinking in the scientific community

www.newscientist.com

New Thinking

New Thinking is a weekly, approximately 500-word exploration of the

digital age, produced by Gerry McGovern, former CEO of Nua and

author of The Caring Economy Taking a broad, philosophical view

of things, it is written in clear, concise language and delivers some

useful comments and ideas It is available by email and is free To subscribe, go to McGovern’s website

www.gerrymcgovern.com

New York Times

Good source of articles on the latest e-business developments in the

US Worth subscribing to their daily news e-mail Full articles can

be accessed at no cost for a day or two; once ‘archived’, there’s a charge

www.nytimes.com

Sloan Management Review

The management journal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy (MIT) Published quarterly, it features articles by some of the world’s leading strategic thinkers, and has a genuinely global range

www.sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/

Time

Weekly news magazine that gives good, positive coverage to

e-busi-ness issues and people That said, Time is a mainstream publication

and so is unlikely to be absolutely at the forefront of e-business think-ing Nonetheless, in recent months it has carried special features on e-commerce, the future of work, and so on

www.time.com/europe

The Utne Reader

A digest, whose editors scan thousands of small and alternative maga-zines Not that well focused perhaps, but worth visiting for occasional gems

www.utne.com

Wired

Monthly American magazine that is good at picking up e-business trends about six months before they become trends

www.wired.com/wired/

World Future Society

Not-for-profit educational and scientific organization that explores how social and technological developments are shaping the future

www.wfs.org

Blank