Book Reviews
December 2006
How do search engines work? Howare PageRanks calculated? WebDragons, by Ian H. Witten, MarcoGori and Teresa Numerico, takes atextbook approach to such ques-tions using historical analogies. "InOriental folklore, dragons not onlyenjoy awesome grace and beauty,they are endowed with immensewisdom," the authors note. "But inthe West, they are often portrayedas evil—St. George vanquishes afearsome dragon." Search engines,too, are large beasts and have thecapacity for wisdom, good and evil."In addition to celebrating the joyof being able to find stuff on theWeb, we want to make you feel un-easy about how everyone has cometo rely on search engines so utterlyand completely." —Penny Crosman
November 2006
Anyone seeking inspiration for the
visual display of data will find it in
the book Beautiful Evidence, by
Edward Tufte. True to its name, the
book is handsomely and thoughtfully
illustrated with mapped pictures,
graphs and even PowerPoint
presentations that present data in
highly graphical, creative and intuitive
ways. The author explains unusual
methods of communicating
data, such as sparklines, easily interpreted
graphics that can display
a year's worth of data in the
space of an inch. The book also details
data visualization no-nos, in
one example showing what Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address would
have looked and sounded like as a
typical, drab business PowerPoint
presentation. —Penny Crosman
August 2006
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) goes hand-in-hand with a business-oriented architecture, and the challenges of SOA aren't so much technical as organizational, cultural and behavioral. SOA needs "Big Hairy Audacious Value"--in other words, a broad business vision. In Service-Oriented Architecture: A Planning and Implementation Guide for Business and Technology (at a tad pricey $59.95), authors Eric Marks and Michael Bell provide guidance to technologists and business managers in planning, implementing, governing and justifying SOA across the enterprise. Don't miss Chapter 4: "Services Identification, Analysis, and Design." --Rajan Chandras
July 2006
SAP users interested in understanding
service-oriented architectures
could benefit from the
aptly named Enterprise SOA by
Dan Woods and Thomas Mattern.
The book covers the basics of
Web services and methods of
controlling and managing them,
and it shows you how to create
Web services applications. The
mostly question-and-answer format,
diagrams and minicase studies
help make the technical points
clear. Beware, though, as this
book is extremely SAP-centric
and repeatedly touts SAP's Enterprise
Service Architecture. If
you have or are considering another
ERP or enterprise service
bus vendor, you might want to
find something more universal..—Penny Crosman
June 2006
Students, librarians and others
who need to delve into the nitty
gritty of data-mining algorithms
or indexing techniques might find
use for the sprawling textbook Information
Science, by David G. Luenberger.
The author breaks information
down into five categories:
"Entropy," or the study of information
and communication theory
based on bits, bandwidth and
codes; economics, meaning how information
is produced, priced and
distributed; encryption, including
discussions of digital signatures
and digital cash; extraction techniques
for retrieving information;
and emission or dissemination of
information through radio, television,
telephones, cell phones or
computer networks.—Penny Crosman
May 2006
"While most companies continue
to focus on wealthy Western markets
to sell their goods and services,
India's Tata Group is building
the $2,200 car," Peter Fingar
points out in his readable book
Extreme Competition. Fingar
makes the case that you must
rethink your business to prepare
for global competition. The book
cites examples of companies
such as FedEx, Google and Sony
that are adjusting their business
models to shifting global and economic
conditions. It also describes
what companies in China,
India and Singapore are doing to
compete. After reading about the
practices of successful companies
around the world, you'll be
inspired to try your own ideas.—Penny Crosman
April 2006
Early in the book Smartsourcing, authors Tom Koulopoulos and Tom Roloff acknowledge, "One of the reactions to the term smartsourcing may be to ask, 'As opposed to what, dumbsourcing?' At the risk of sounding trite our response would be, yes, exactly! The streets are littered with the remnants of sourcing deals that have not performed as expected or that have simply gone bad." The authors give suggestions for deciding which functions to outsource and which to keep. For example, "How well do you execute it? How important is it to your competitive position?" The ideas are more theoretical than practical, but there's much food for thought here for anybody trying to make outsourcing decisions.
—Penny Crosman
March 2006
Vivek Ranadive's The Power To Predict (McGraw-Hill, 2006) looks at how companies are making better use of data in business decisions. "Predictive business is like Wayne Gretzky racing to where the puck is going to be best placed for his next slap shot, while lesser hockey players aim for where the puck is now, finding themselves out of scoring position by the time they get control," Ranadive writes. He discusses the mathematics behind predictive modeling and how particular industries, such as banking and health care, are using data analysis and other technologies to improve marketing and customer service. Helpful case studies are provided on FedEx, Harrah's, E.J. Gallo and others.
—Penny Crosman
February 2006
The co-founding editor of Wired magazine, John Battelle, has penned The Search, a highly readable history of Google, its ups and downs, its evolution of Web search concepts, the power it holds in its 175,000 computers, its ambitions and the future potential for a Semantic Web. If you follow Google in the press you won't find big surprises in this book, but you may find the behind-the-scenes details and anecdotes interesting. This book won't help you design an enterprise search architecture, but if you have any reason, personal or work-related, to understand Google and where it's coming from, this will be a good read.
—Penny Crosman
January 2006
Business rules are the foundation of any business — business processes are, in a sense, no more than the embodiment of business rules. So how familiar are you with this important concept? Clearly articulated and easy to read, Business Rules Concepts, 2nd edition, by Ronald G Ross of Business Rule Solutions, will help you get there in comfort. Encouragingly slim (134 pages), a friendly and to-the-point style and good textual and graphical presentation make this a great read for your next short flight. (Note to author: For the next edition, add a couple of pages listing available rules management solutions.)
—Rajan Chandras
December 2005
Book sales figures would indicate that more of us feel like dummies than savvy managers. Today, even IT topics are fair game for Wiley's ever-expanding "For Dummies" empire, joining Pilates, cocktail tips and Catholicism. For managers looking for a little more intellectual but still basic treatment, I recommend Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann Publishers' Savvy Manager Guides. The latest to arrive is Grid Computing, by Pawel Plaszczak and Richard Wellner, Jr. Grid, which at times seems to be drowning in its own buzz, gets a sober treatment here. Written by two grid pros, the book offers a practical examination of where the entire field of distributed computing is headed.
—Alice LaPlante
November 2005
Implementing dashboards means putting together a team of business and IT resources, defining user requirements, assessing vendor solutions, buying or building the solution, and deploying it to user satisfaction. The task is challenging, not impossible: But where to begin? Try buying several copies of Enterprise Dashboards — Design and Best Practices for IT by Shadan Malik (John Wiley & Sons, 2005) and giving them to key project business and technology stakeholders. The book is written simply without overwhelming jargon or too much attitude. It's an excellent overview for business users and managers as well as for IT personnel involved in providing dashboard solutions.
—Rajan Chandras
October 2005
Dorothy, we're not in slowly changing dimensions anymore.... Not many people have used database technology to model objects that constantly move — such as weather systems, terrorists and armies. Two major exceptions are Ralf Hartmut Güting and Markus Schneider, the authors of the only book on the subject, Moving Objects Databases (Morgan Kaufmann, 2005). The potential applications are many and profound. Even if products were available to make building these applications easier, it still would be a huge challenge to most. Those willing to face the test will find this graduate-level textbook for the technically astute a suitable place to start.
—Jeanette Burriesci
September 2005
Knowledge work is sometimes applied to increase business productivity, but rarely is the productivity of
knowledge workers themselves reliably assessed. That's why it's so exciting that business process reengineering
(BPR) guru Thomas H. Davenport has shifted his focus from the high-volume, easily observed and improved activities
of BPR over to the much more nebulous task of improving knowledge workers' performance.
In Thinking for a Living
(Harvard Business School Press, 2005), Davenport explains why the Frederick Taylor "efficiency expert" approach
— although it revolutionized industrial age productivity and led to the successes of BPR — will most
likely harm knowledge workers' performance. Yet, exempting knowledge workers from all manner of performance
analysis isn't a good alternative, even though it's the one most commonly used. The (rare) studies done on
white collar workers show them to be "grotesquely unproductive," in fellow guru Peter Drucker's words. What to do?
Davenport provides a truly useful framework for analyzing knowledge workers and methods for improving their work.
He manages to combine theory with enough practical details to help you apply it soundly and to reassure you the
theory itself is sound — all in a short, pleasant read.
—Jeanette Burriesci
August 2005
If you're not paranoid then you're not paying attention. Not only can mischief makers,
disgruntled employees, thieves and industrial spies threaten your enterprise systems and
data, but foreign governments and terrorist organizations might, too. If you're serious
about preventing breaches or making a solid prosecutorial case against someone who abuses
your systems, then the new and much-improved second edition of
Computer Forensics
by John R. Vacca (Charles River Media, 2005) shouldn't be your only reference.
But if you want to open your eyes to all the worst-case scenarios, reading this book
will keep your eyes open all night.
—Jeanette Burriesci
July 2005
Don't read just the first chapter of Malcolm Gladwell's newest bestseller,
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Little, Brown, 2005).
If you do, you'll mistakenly think he argues against the kind of methodical,
data-driven decisions we espouse. Blink isn't an ovation to management by whim.
Instead, through the use of fascinating examples told in captivating narrative, Gladwell
shows that the split-second, "instinctive" decisions that turn out best are the ones informed
by deep experience. Experience susses out the few critical variables relevant to a decision.
Blink indirectly and convincingly defends data mining, decision trees and closed-loop decision-making.
—Jeanette Burriesci
June 2005
With all the hype surrounding RFID, you might find yourself in a quandary about whether to adopt it. SAP executive board member
Claus Heinrich believes there's no room for doubt: "The fact is, most of us have no choice." In
RFID and Beyond: Growing Your Business Through Real-World Awareness
(John Wiley & Sons, 2005), Heinrich makes a strong case for the transformative power of RFID and "awareness" technologies.
His argument goes beyond data issues to the enablement of adaptive, intelligent networks. Heinrich does a good job of tempering
his enthusiasm with case examples and cautious words of wisdom.
—Rajeev Kasturi
May 2005
A surprising 85% of any process is muda — Japanese for "waste" — according to the discipline of value
stream mapping. Manufacturers are starting to change their businesses to get back as much of that 85% as possible.
How? By using some of the knowledge captured in
Inescapable Data: Harnessing the Power of Convergence
by Chris Stakutis and John Webster (IBM Press, 2005). This easy-to-understand book inspires readers to take
advantage of the staggering (sometimes anxiety-provoking) opportunities the increasing pervasiveness and
interoperability of data offer. If you're a technology evangelist who isn't getting through to business
decision makers, give them this book.
How concerned are you about identity theft? What steps are you taking to try and prevent identity
theft in your organization? If this conjures visions of firewalls, demilitarized zones, hardened
databases and similar technical jargon, you will find a refreshingly people-oriented perspective
on identity theft in the recently published book
Preventing Identity Theft in Your Business by Judith M. Collins (John Wiley & Sons, 2005).
Starting with a familiar yet oft-forgotten maxim — that computers don't steal identities, people do —
the book goes on to examine the ramifications of identity theft from various perspectives, and suggests
an employee-empowered approach to safeguarding identity information and preventing identity theft.
Drawing on the author's personal experiences in dealing with identity theft in research and practice,
the book proposes a people-centric process to securing identity information, titled Business Information
Security Program (BISP). The emphasis of the BISP is on securing three "fronts": People, Processes and
Property (e.g. web sites), starting with identifying the types and sources of identity (e.g. credit card
information, bank accounts), then setting about to securing the three fronts through teamwork. Although
at times a little lofty in its claims ("...identity theft stops here"), the book's premise cannot be ignored.
—Rajan Chandras
April 2005
Now that the Internet has settled down into a stable, well-understood channel of communication and commerce,
defining its place in your overall business strategy is more important than ever.
Strategic Management of E-Business
(John Wiley & Sons, 2004) by Stephen Chen, an academic director at Australia's National Graduate School of
Management, is a scholarly (but not dry) treatment of the subject embellished with an abundant collection
of helpful case studies. It's an excellent book to get you started.
—Rajan Chandras
March 2005
Conventional wisdom has long held that the productivity gains from automation in manufacturing would never be so
dramatically realized in services because they rely on human delivery. Now we can automate many customer-facing
services to not only save costs but also greatly improve service. Coincidentally, how a business manages its
customer relationships is now an essential competitive differentiator. How do you get the most from automation?
Best Face Forward
(Jeffrey F. Rayport & Bernard J. Jaworski, Harvard Business School Press, 2005) answers in depth with an academic,
well-organized, analytic sensibility that's grounded in an intriguing collection of case studies.
February 2005
CIOs, put this book high on your reading list:
The New CIO Leader-
Setting the Agenda and Delivering Results (Harvard Business School Press, 2004). Written by Gartner
fellow Marianne Broadbent and Gartner group vice president Ellen Kitzis, this book is a must-read for current and
future CIOs. Drawing heavily from Gartner resources and other IT practitioners and researchers, its direct
uncomplicated style is sure to make it highly accessible. The New CIO Leader is an excellent combination
of armchair theory and practical advice. It even includes a self-assessment guide to help aspiring or current CIOs
get started in the right direction. —Rajan Chandras
January 2005
If you think there's no difference between an enterprise business architecture and an enterprise IT architecture, try
reading Enterprise Business Architecture:
The Formal Link Between Strategy and Results (Auerbach, 2004). You'll
find out not only why a business architecture can improve enterprise performance and the design of complementary architectures
(such as IT systems), but you'll also find tools and diagrams as well as case studies to illustrate the principles and get you
started on your own architecture. Authors Ralph Whittle and Conrad B. Myrick each possess more than a quarter century in
the IT industry and have a patent pending on their own strategic business/IT planning framework.
