Futurize Your Enterprise: Business Strategy in the Age ... (ISBN 0471357634)

Amazon.com Review:
Two years after its release, the second edition of David Siegel's Creating Killer Web Sites remains a bestselling guide to building sites that are driven by design aesthetics rather than technological prowess. Now, in Futurize Your Enterprise, Siegel takes off his Web designer hat and turns his attention to developing a corporate online presence aimed at meeting consumer needs. He cautions readers to throw off their old bricks-and-mortar mindsets and focus not on "how to build a Web site but how to build a Web business." Siegel divides the book into four parts--"Principles," "Practice," "Prototypes," and "Predictions"--that moves from "tools and methodologies you'll need to transform your management-led organization into what I call a customer-led company," to fictional case studies that show how these techniques may be applied today, to speculative future scenarios "in which the Internet is no longer a tool but a platform for work, community-building and individual empowerment." His suggestions include establishing an autonomous Web division that takes the medium more seriously than itself, encouraging (if not insisting that) all employees interact directly with online customers, and factoring in participatory or community aspects that actively attract those who share demographics or specific interests. Some may find that Siegel's recommendations suffer because of his repeated use of fictional case studies to make his point. However, those looking for new ideas will surely find some here. Futurize Your Enterprise is for Web masters, business people, and the many that Siegel won over through his earlier books. --Howard Rothman

The worst book I ever read!:
DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! If you have common sense, don't listen to the stupid people who think this book has any value. The book is made of a pile of pure stupid, simplistic ideas without any foundation. The author wrote a book about web design in 1996 and in 1999 he wrote this book, now about how people will do business in the future. The result? Just a pile of pre-dotcom-blow guru (junk)... I read this book just because I needed to do it for a course I attended and it was a torture. I wanted to throw this book in the trash can every time I finished reading one of its paragraphs, but I couldn't. If you don't believe me, just browse the book and you'll see how it stinks.

Good at one time, but now very out of date:
Let me preface this review by saying that I am a big fan of David Siegel and I have enjoyed his other books. However, "Futurize Your Enterprise" doesn't have the staying power that his other books have. This book was written in the late `90s and therefore Siegel has the same tone that many new media pundits has at that time which is a sense that nothing could sink this ship, not even God himself. As I read through it I cringed time and time again at how irrelevant some of his comments are in today's economy. This book would have been a best seller even today if the bottom had not fallen out of the Internet market. Unfortunately, this reads more like a time capsule or history book rather than contemporary business book.

Forget it:
Keep your $'s. This is one of the worse books ever written. One star is way to much. You really can get better business advice from Tarrot cards. No substance and since it has been out a couple of years, history has proven his ideas flawed.

From Paris, France - Just brilliant & needs deep reading:
I'm a web manager and have been working in the web since 5 years. I'm also teacher and writer on the web, in France... This David Siegel's book is just brilliant and I keep on reading and re-reading it. I confirm it needs a deep and not fast reading. He talks very well of problems that undergo webmanagers in middle or big companies, and of new principles. Maybe too well, because after reading his book and his many e-cancer's symptoms descriptions,it's not always easy to stay full motivated in one's company, but he's showing the right direction, so ...

An author with a fairly accurate vision:
It is quite something when a visionary book written in 1998, and published in 1999, is pretty much right on point when reviewed in 2006. I think the author did a wonderful job trying to explain to business people in 1999 that they should move away from a storefront mentality and grasp onto the Internet mentality. The people that did this helped the following companies become huge success stories: Monster.com, Google.com, Yahoo.com, Amazon.com, Dell.com, and WSJ.com. Many of the specifics included in this book were probably not accurate examples. And many of the examples used were not all that fun to read about. For example, in Part III of the book, I suspect readers would have like to have read about attorneys selling services over the Internet, schools teaching classes over the Internet, newspapers selling news over the Internet, and dating services and recruiting services being offered over the Internet. Instead, the author told us about a grocery store, steel fabricator, and a bank intranet. But who cares? The underlying message is the same: The Internet has and will dramatically change the way people live in our world. Today so many people get their news online, the weather online, their TV schedules online, and they research cancer, drugs, movies, vacation destinations, famous people, etc. You name it, they log onto the Internet to educate themselves or to buy things they need. I think the author spent a little too much time discussing the significance of online communities. They have not proven to be money-makers for businesses on the Net. However, company Web sites that promote customer interaction with the company have proven to be successful. These sites are ones that are designed to be customer-driven rather than as digital business cards or digital product listings. I would have enjoyed the book better if Part IV had been eliminated, if Part III had included fewer sample "prototypes," and if Parts I & II had been more fully developed. I recommend that anybody starting a business, or doing strategic planning for an existing business, get hold of this book and read parts I & II: "Principals" and "Practice." What the author calls "E-Business" is what you should be aiming to create. Oh - by the way, E-Businesses are the best kind of business to start while you are gainfully employed. Through an E-Business you can work during the day to support yourself, and fill your customers' orders at night that were placed over the Internet. There is no need to have a storefront or to be available to deal with customers during the day like you would have had to just a few years ago. Do yourself a favor and read this book so you will be in a creative state of mind when designing your business plan for an E-Business.