Insightful, scary and impressive

Charles Fishman has managed to both intrigue and scare me with The Wall-Mart Effect. This book is worth reading for anyone interested in the economy, corporate growth models, supply chain management, manufacturing or sales. Even those with no interest in any of those topics should read the book, just to understand why you SHOULD be interested in this company.

Not being focused on traditional retail or physical product manufacturing in my daily life, the book was still able to get my mind racing with thoughts about how to work with or against the massive force that Wall-Mart exerts on all of us.

Reviewed on Amazon

Labels: book review

I just recently read a book called Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide, published by O'Reilly. Amy Shuen has done a wonderful job with this book. Its ability to blend the business, marketing and technology conversation around Web 2.0 philosophies into a cohesive discussion makes this book worth the read. While I was slightly disappointed that the book didn’t spend much time on internal uses for these strategies (which could easily have been added as a seventh chapter), the focus on the value to changing a business was well researched and valuable.

In particular, spending time understanding the various value propositions around Web 2.0 was excellent. From innovation models, to monetization strategies and harnessing the long tail of a potential market, the revenue potential is clearly explored.

One comment that I read from another reader was that he felt that the language was contrived and not engaging enough. I couldn’t disagree more. The book was articulate and readable, especially given the fact that the book covered so many of the dry topics that are often ignored for the sake of hype generating content.

Labels: book review