What's New?

• October 17: Updates last class.
• (don't remember): Updated for FAST visit.
• September 19: Updated with information about lecture September 23 - lots of videos....
• September 4: Next class on Sept. 8, will only be 3 hours since some of you have a class with Tor Larsen starting 1100 (which could not be moved). Auditorium C2-005.
• August 31: Guest lecturer and lit. for Sept 2. ready.
• August 7: New page, based on last year's, set up. Very rudimentary.

Course overview

Prerequisites: GRA6821 Strategic Technology and Technology Strategy, or equivalent courses or knowledge as determined by the instructor.

Areas that will be covered may include:

• technology evolution and technology history
• disruptive and sustaining technologies
• entering new markets with technology
• linking strategy and innovation
• building strategic innovation capability
• technology market structure and evolution
• componentization and integration
• industry structures and competitive environments in eBusiness
• electronic markets and market facilitators
• technology implementation and institutionalization

Administrivia

• Christensen, C. M.and M. Raynor (2003). The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press. (two chapters were required reading for GRA6821, so students should have some familiarity with it already)."Innovation fails because companies unwittingly strip the disruptive potential from ideas before they ever see the light of day". This is the followup book to The Innovator's Dilemma, a great book summarizing Christensen's research since the first book, with excellent examples of when and how technologies can be made to be disruptive - as well as a torrent of highly relevant for any manager wanting to do strategy in technology-rich industries.
• Shapiro, Carl & Hal R. Varian (1999) Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, McGraw-Hill/Harvard Business School Press (required reading for GRA6821, so students should be familiar with it already). (For more information, check out the dedicated Web site at http://www.inforules.com/. You can also read the first chapter here.) In the words of The Economist: "These two Berkeley professors bring a discipline to their analysis that is usually quite absent from the overheated burblings of the cyberprophets... [This book is about] rigorous and practical strategies, based on solid foundations, for surviving and prospering in the network economy. [...] what is so likeable about this book--its fairmindedness and its wise pragmatism."
• Utterback, J. M. (1994). Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press (required reading for GRA6821, so students should be familiar with it already). Utterback is a professor at MIT and a pioneer in the field of technology evolution. This book describes the process of technology evolution in a number of industries, from computer chips to a fabulous chapter on the ice industry (where Norway was a very important player on the world market.) A theoretically robust model for technology evolution as a process of evolution and revolution is detailed, a model which is crucial for our understanding of the likely changes we are facing in our increasingly digital business world. This book offers the theoretical weight necessary to put the companies and technologies we study into a broader context.

• Brown, Shona L. and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt (1998): Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos
  Case studies of corporations competing mostly in the computer industry, and how they need to balance structure vs. creativity. Each dimension of organization is illustrated in terms on one company that is too rigid, one that is too loose, and one that has the right balance (at least for a while). Solid work.
• Christensen, Clayton M. (1997) The Innovator's Dilemma: Why New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
  In this impressively researched book focusing on the hard disk drive industry, Clayton Christensen shows how listening to the customer and giving the customer what they want can get a company in trouble when the technology changes, even though the change may, at the time, seem technologically insignificant. A scary book for technology executives, definitely something that should have been read by IBM, Norsk Data, Digital, Wordperfect, Prime, Data General, Bull, ICL and other former greats of information technology.
• Garfinkel, Simson and Gene Spafford (2002). Web Security and Commerce, O'Reilly and Associates
  This down-to-earth, hands-on description of tools and technologies for setting up and managing web services provides the details where Cairncross' book gives the big picture. A great reference for people wanting to roll their own Web service, including some wonderful war stories on setting up their own ISP from two seasoned technology writers and tinkerers. However, as with all books about specific technologies, its illustrations quickly age.
• Afuah, A. and C. L. Tucci (2001). Internet Business Models and Strategies: Text and Cases. Burr Ridge, IL, McGraw-Hill Irwin.
  Textbook, based largely on the value configurations framework created by Charles Stabell and Øystein Fjeldstad, mixes theoretical summary and a good collection of cases of companies facing strategic choices in a digital world.
• Amor, Daniel (2001): The E-business (R)evolution, Prentice-Hall (second edition)
  A very complete "technology book", though there is little reason to feel intimidated. Good explanations of all aspects of life online, practically oriented and surprisingly up-to-date. And, for an added bonus, written by a European....

• MIT's Technology Review magazine
• Ray Kurzweil's web site where you can also sign up for a newsletter with some of the more ambitious technology directions of the day
• Slashdot, a lively discussion list for nerds - if you want to spread the word fast, this is the place to do it
• Edge, a hangout for the self-confessed (and self-appointed) digerati
• Rafe Needleman's column on new and interesting technology startups. This is the stuff read by people who finance startups.
• Wired, Fast Company or Business 2.0, technology magazines with lots of fluff and occasional great feature articles, though losing steam since the dot-com boom subsided.

• Term paper (50%): Term papers are to be handed in, in Blackboard and in the usual fashion, no later than (time to be announced later). Done in groups of 2-3 students. Topics will be discussed in class - but, of course, technology and strategy should be prominent.
• Class participation (25%): Determined by course instructor based on quantity and quality of discussion and preparation during classes. All students should use name tags (if you lose yours, there is a template to create one in Blackboard) and sit at the same place in the classroom during all course sessions.
• Individual written assignments (25%): To be delivered during the course.Details later.

Detailed seminar plan

Study questions:

1. Marshall McLuhan, a writer on the impact of communications technology on our society and behaviour, said "We shape our tools, and our tools shape us." What does this mean - and how does it impact management?
2. What issues in technology management and technology strategy do you consider important, and why?
3. What is an Eloi? A Morlok?
4. Whatever happened to BeOS? Why?
5. What is the technosphere? How can you make it thicker?
6. Create your own question....

• Carr, N. G. (2003). "IT Doesn't Matter." Harvard Business Review(May): 41-49. (In Blackboard, along with the ensuing debate about the article.)
• Stephenson, N. (1999). In the Beginning....Was the Command Line. New York, Avon Books. Available for free here. Excellent treatise on what technology really means. If you understand and like this article, then you really grok tech.
• If you are so inclined, take a look at Sherman, S. P. (1984). "Microsoft's drive to dominate software." Fortune (January 23): 82-90. (In Blackboard)

• Cringely, R. X. (1992). Accidental Empires: How the boys of Silicon Valley make their millions, battle foreign competition, and still can't get a date. Harmonsworth, Middlesex, England, Penguin Books. Fun about the microcomputer industry, provides the background to understanding how and why Microsoft won..

• Neal Stephenson's (1999) Cryptonomicon is a highly entertaining tome about technology, history, adventure and just about everything else - and the chapters on the creation of the Epiphyte corporation rings a bell with anyone involved in a startup - including a disillusioned take on what a business plan should contain.

Study questions:

1. What is an ERP system?
2. You want an ERP system for your company, but it seems you have to make some specific changes to it, which are special to your company? Should you make the system fit the company or the company fit the system? What are the risks and benefits of the alternatives?
3. The lessons from Davenport's article pertain to large companies - what are the challenges for small companies?
4. Davenport's article is 7 years old - how has the technology changed since then, and what are the consequences?
5. Check out salesforce.com - what is their approach, and how is it a competitor to SAP?

• The Wikipedia entry on SAP: Poke around a bit and look at the competition: Oracle Financials, Peoplesoft, and BAAN (SSA). Check out the concepts of ERP, CRM, HRMSand whatever you can find on process optimization.
• Davenport, T. H. (1998). "Putting the Enterprise into the Enterprise System." Harvard Business Review (July-August): 121-131. (In Blackboard)
• If you are interested in systems and interface design, take a look at Richard Pawson's Expressive Systems: A manifesto for radical business software, CSC 2000 (in Blackboard).

• For an advanced look at systems design, you may want to study Richard Pawson and Robert Matthews' book Naked Objects. The full text of the book is available on the net, as well as some PDF sample pages.
  

Study questions:

1. What is the competitive impact of having a short development cycle in the car manufacturing industry?
2. What is a "platform" product, and what is it important? Can you think of examples of platform products?
3. For which companies is this important? Have you noticed companies that seem to be good at rapid product development and deployment in other industries? Why are they so good?

• Wheelwright, S. C. and K. B. Clark (1992). "Organizing and Leading "Heavyweight" Development Teams." California Management Review 92(34): 9-29.
• Clark, K. B. and T. Fujimoto (1990). "The Power of Product Integrity." Harvard Business Review (November-December): 107-118.
• Wheelwright, S. C. and K. B. Clark (1992). "Competing through development capability in a manufacturing-based organization." Business Horizons 35(4): 29-44.
• Wheelwright, S. C. and K. B. Clark (1992). "Creating Project Plans to Focus Product Development." Harvard Business Review (March-April): 2-14.

• Wheelwright, S. and K. Clark (1992). Revolutionizing Product Development. New York, Free Press. Great book on all aspects of product development, summarizing and integrating a decade of research.
• Rich, B. R. and L. Janos (1994). Skunk Works. New York, Little, Brown. The story of Lookheed Martin's skunkworks lab, which created the U2, the SR-17 and the F-117.

Study questions:

1. Compared to Malone and Rockart's vision of a networked society, how is the new, smarter Internet different?
2. Which of the four viewpoints of the Internet (outlined in the SmartNet report) do you agree most with?

Read and be prepared to discuss:

• Barr, Trevor, Alex Burns and Darren Sharp (2005). The Smart Internet 2010 (PDF). Report commissioned by the CRC Australia
• Malone, T. W., & Rockart, J. F. (1991). Computers, Networks and the Corporation. Scientific American (September), 128-136. (You may already have read this, for the GRA6821 course)

• Godin, Seth (2005). Who's There? Seth Godin's Incomplete Guide to Blogs and the Web
• The Cluetrain Manifesto

Study questions:

1. If you are running a software company, what does intellectual property rights mean to you? How would you like them enforced?

Read and be prepared to discuss:

• Find a computer with a sound card and an Internet connection, and see and listen to Ed Felten's lecture "Rip, Mix, Burn, Sue: Technology, Politics, and the Fight to Control Digital Media" (go to Princeton University's lecture page, do a local search for "Felten"). Pay attention not just to his speech, but the little story told in the beginning about what happened to him when he wanted to talk about his research
• Go to Lawrence Lessig's home page and eff.org's home page and have a look around.
• Check out Business Software Alliance's home page.
• Go to Lawrence Lessig's home page and Electronic Frontier Foundations's home page and have a look around. In particular (if you have time), you can listen to a Flash version of Larry's famous OSCON talk (requires Flash, about 8Mb download), though quite a bit of that is covered in Felten's lecture.
• Look up Wikipedia's entry on software patents and some of the references
• While we are at it (a totally different but just as interesting subject), check out this presentation (from Swedish television) by the famous Swedish social health professor Hans Rosling. See how clever software can change your view of the world. (The presentation is in Swedish - for those of you who don't understand what he is saying, find someone to watch it with. Or check out the Gapminder website which has some animated versions of his statistics and software.

• Check out the lecture by James Randi, Founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation: "The Search for the Chimera", on Princeton University's lecture page page (it's from 2001). This is entertaining, but the underlying message is very serious. Stuff for watching with a glass of good wine and a good chair - and if your computer has reasonable speakers, a few friends.

Study questions:

1. How does FAST's value offering differ from that of other competitors (e.g., Google, Autonomy, SAS, Cognos?)

• Material from FAST, primarily white papers on various aspects of search technology
• Study their web site, including their annual reports
• The Economist on search vs. organization and collaborative filtering
• Anything else you can find that you consider relevant - put it in the wiki!

• If you're in the mood, check out Google's backup search technology

Study questions:

1. Where will the web go in the future?
2. What is a podcast? How do you create one?
3. What are the differences between Stephenson's and O'Reilly's view of the future of information technology? What are the similarities?

• A presentation of your term paper. One way of thinking about it may be to answer these questions:
  
• what is the question to which your paper is the answer?
• what is the audience for your paper?
• what will the paper look like?
• what learning from the course will you use?
  
• what will you have learned from writing the paper?
• what about his paper will keep you awake at night?
  

Read and be prepared to discuss:

• Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning was the Command Line (In Blackboard from the first class). I want you to really understand what he is talking about - we didn't get there when we discussed it in the beginning class.
• What is Web 2.0 by Tim O'Reilly.

• Try anything talked about at Edge.org