|
||
 |
||
| The other day, as a window washer worked his way through my house, he asked what I did for a living, and I showed him Context. As he flipped through it, he nodded. Then he launched into a remarkably well-reasoned dissertation on how mass customization will transform the music business. I thought: Boy, have we come a long way! Not quite two years ago, when we launched Context to explore how information technology was rewriting the rules of business, the idea was still novel, even controversial. Now, largely because of the Internet, the revolutionary effect of technology has become as clear as, well, washed glass. Because our bet on the growing role of technology has landed Context smack in the middle of the most important business trend of our time, readership has grown faster even than I had dared hope. To build on that momentum, we’ve begun doing a series of things: First, as of this summer, we accelerated from a quarterly schedule to bi-monthly. Second, we’ve started selling copies through newsstands across the country. (We’re getting good display, but feel free to move Context to the front of the rack if you find it buried somewhere. That’s what I do.) Third, I’ve begun doing a weekly Webcast on www.vcall.com at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesdays. I typically use the time to interview an author of a column or article in Context, to explore the topic further. If you’re especially interested in some topic, you might watch to see when the author will appear on the Webcast and I’ll tell you); I take e-mail questions during the call, to pass on to the author. The trick, of course, will be to stay at the cutting edge of ideas, at a time when even general-interest publications are covering how e-commerce changes the nature of competition. But, if this issue is any indication, we’ll do just fine. The major theme is how companies need to integrate their physical operations with their on-line ones, a trend that I think will become increasingly important and topical as the winning strategies become more apparent over the next year or so. REI’s pioneering integration successes are laid out in “Getting Physical.” “Book Learning” shows how Barnes & Noble hamstrung itself in its rivalry with Amazon.com by backing away from its “clicks and mortar” integration plans. This issue’s interview, “The Cyber Side of Sears,” with the retailing giant’s chief executive, Arthur Martinez, has him disclosing plans for integration that go beyond even those at REI. (The interview mainly provides insight into how to make dinosaurs dance—in other words, how to take an old-line business like Sears and get it up to Internet speed.) “Bull-Headed” shows how Merrill Lynch’s vaunted brokerage force continually kept it from innovating in on-line stock trading—and will likely keep it from catching up with competitors such as Schwab, despite all the fuss that surrounded Merrill’s announcement of grand plans in June. The Barnes & Noble piece, meanwhile, tells of how a company renowned for innovations misread the Internet and was “Amazoned.” Addressing the need for rapid and continuous innovation, “Up to Speed” is an important column on how executives can avoid the all-too-common pitfalls when they try to get products and services into the market faster—something that just about everyone is attempting these days. “Delivering on the Promise” lays out the strategies that businesses should consider when it comes to delivering to consumers all the goods and services that they keep ordering over the Internet. While the long-running “last mile” debate refers to the need to improve electronic connections to homes, this piece makes a strong case that the last physical mile is at least as important as the last digital mile. Happy (and profitable) reading. Cheers, Paul B. Carroll |
