CARNEGIE LIBRARY’S BUSINESS LIBRARIANS
03/17/2002
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
ONE STAR
Page F-10
(Copyright 2002)
Net Attitude : What It Is, How to Get It, And Why Your Company Can’t Survive Without It by
John R. Patrick . Perseus Publishing, 2001).
For successful companies in the coming decades, Net Attitude will be so natural that it will be invisible. But most companies today are ignoring this inevitable future; they may accommodate the Internet, but are hanging on to many of the old ways instead of taking advantage of the many facets of its remarkable power. John Patrick, who spent the last decade of the 20th century developing Internet Technology for IBM , was with the Net when it blasted off, and is following it into the stratosphere. Here he tells these companies how to change their outlook.
Looking ahead, this book projects what we will all see in the “Ngi” — next generation of the Internet . Employing technologies that today are still expensive and complex will become as simple and easy as breathing. Patrick discusses the upcoming features that will make the Internet universal and inescapable: ubiquity, language translation, new uses for instant messaging, e-marketplaces, integration of all media, a new generation of e-business that will leap ahead of the simple “click here to buy” approach, and the ways that the serious problem of security can be overcome.
But getting Net Attitude means changing the ways of thinking of all of a company’s employees. It means realigning all of its systems and processes, factoring the future phases of the Internet into your business strategy, and looking for inspiration from teen-agers and seniors — the population segments that “totally get it.” Communication is the key, and companies no longer have an excuse for not providing around-the-clock service, simultaneously using the Internet to communicate with employees and in turn connecting those employees to the 24/7 feedback of the rest of the world.
This book is engaging, provocative and practical. And unlike so many books that are filled with ideas on how your company can make more money, this one includes an epilogue on how to give some of it back to those in need, through — what else? — e-philanthropy.
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