Several researchers are trying to find out how big the Internet really is. Hal Varian of the University of California at Berkeley has indicated that the Net consists of over 2.5 billion documents and is growing at a rate of 7.3 million pages per day.
With this vast repository of information, it’s no wonder that the Internet is becoming an essential source of advice and expertise in support of corporate efforts to improve organizational results.
Access to excellent information with a distinctly Canadian point of view can be found in the online documents posted by CIO Canada and CxO.ca, available through the ITworldcanada.com web site. Readers may be familiar with some or all of the following publications outside Canada, each of which has a substantial online presence in support of the “New Economy”:
1) The Industry Standard: http://www.thestandard.com
2) Business 2.0: http://www.business2.com
3) Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com
4) Red Herring: http://www.redherring.com
5) Wired: http://www.wired.com
Featured Publication
The Industry Standard contains all the “Internet Economy” news that’s fit to print. Check it out at www.thestandard.com. If you’re looking for information on who’s doing what to whom in the Internet Economy, this is your place to browse.
The weekly hard-copy version of this publication tackles news of the week, money & markets, politics, and technology, as well as a range of other topics. When going online, check out “New Gig” for the latest big job changes in the Internet industry, “Net Returns”, which looks at companies, products and services that make the Internet click, and “Metrics”, which combines hard numbers on the Internet economy with a searchable archive of intelligent research. thestandard.com also has an online recruitment service to help you with your job search.
Featured Reports
Two recent KPMG reports that will assist your “E” efforts include:
1) Leading The Transformation to e-Government: Seven Things You Need to Know
http://www.us.kpmg.com/RutUS_prod/
2) E-Commerce and Cyber Crime: New Strategies for Managing the Risks of Exploitation
http://www.us.kpmg.com/RutUS_prod/Documents/12/new_strat.pdf
These two studies present security issues you must address and some strategies to safely “ramp up” your online capabilities.
Finally, in the print mode, two books I’m recommending are:
1) Blur – The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, Capstone (1998) by Stan Davis & Chris Meyer.
2) Net Worth: Shaping Markets When Consumers Make the Rules, Harvard Business School Press (1999) by John Hagel III and M. Singer.
Dan Swanson is a management consultant with LGS Group in Winnipeg. He specializes in audit and management consulting and can be reached at dswanson@lgs.ca