Introduction
 

This quick read newsletter is provided to inform you of the hottest books and advice available.  Take a minute to review the content.

Management Advice

The theme of this newsletter is "change".  Our industry today is experiencing tremendous change-both in terms of the marketplace and technology.  Hardware margins are down, local competition is being replaced with national, vendor relationships are more complex, new and undefined solutions are on the horizon.

Geoffrey Moore of the Chasm Group writes in the foreword of the book The Engaged Customer, the New Rules of Internet Direct Marketing, that in times of changing technologies there are two types of management teams. “The first are visionaries who see where the future trend is headed and act to intercept it.  Their goal is it leapfrog the competition by being the first in their competitive set to move onto the new platform, thereby gaining first-mover advantage.  The second are pragmatists in pain who see their present situation so grim that embracing unproven alternatives looks better than sticking with the status quo.”

The Book Review section of this newsletter discusses a popular parable written in simple language that emphasizes the importance of reaction in a changing market.  The bottom line of this strategic planning story is “quick is better.”

The Tech Talk section of this newsletter defines the concept of  “Zero Latency.” A term used first in the tech environment adopted now by those in management.

You will soon see why your business must move with the cheese in order to become a zero latency organization.
 

Book Review

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

This is a simple parable, popular in the business circles, that deals with change.  It contrasts how two mice or two people look for cheese in a maze. The mice, named Sniff and Scurry, hurry to find the cheese each day, eat it while it’s there and move on quickly to another location when it disappears.  The people, named Hem and Haw, deliberate about where the cheese could be, find it by process of elimination, dwell on it while it’s there and are paralyzed when it is gone.

The message of the story is that Change happens-the cheese supply grows smaller, gets moldy and finally is gone.  Everyone is afraid of change.  When it happens, worrying about why it happened is a waste of time.  Instead, sniffing out new cheese and scurrying to the new opportunity creates an even greater reward.  Treat the change as if it is a new adventure, even if it is down new corridors.  Mistakes will happen, look back to see how you could have found the new cheese earlier or should have seen it disappear, but most importantly, don’t stand still and be afraid of making a mistake or of making a change, move on quickly.
 

Tech Talk

Zero-latency refers to delivering information throughout an organization as close to real time as possible. The term “Zero-Latency Enterprise” was labeled by the Gartner Group in 1998.  Latency, in technical terms, is the time it takes for a computer to respond to some kind of input, therefore zero-latency means instant response. A 'zero-latency strategy’ is one that produces the immediate exchange of information across geographical, technical and organizational boundaries for up-to-the-minute data.

As a business, you must ask yourself how you respond to the changes that are taking place in the market. As a matter of survival, companies must begin operating in a zero-latency environment.