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It isn't easy finding a job these days and for those working in the creative fields like graphic design, illustration, photography, filmmaking, and music, a digital portfolio is just the shiny object you need to catch the attention of a prospective employer. But you can't just slap a few files on a CD and call it a night. As Cynthia Baron points out in Designing a Digital Portfolio--a thorough guide to digital portfolios--your first impression is critical and good preparation will pay off.
The books begins with soul-searching: what work are you hoping to get, who's your audience, what style of presentation should you choose, and what technology--Zip, CD, DVD? Effective portfolios from various fields are analyzed, for example, one for an industrial designer or a flash animation artist. If you happen to do both or are otherwise a jack-of-all-trades, Baron outlines your strategy for targeting your audience and deciding how to focus your presentation.
There're several great chapters on prepping your work, collecting it (do you have your process materials, like pencil sketches?), digitizing the non-digital and cleaning it up (like stitching together scans or effective cropping), nitty-gritty items like optimizing and encoding (crucial if you don't want your future boss frustrated by large files), and dealing with that neglected cousin of the visually creative: good written content.
Next, the book considers delivery (for example, Web versus a portable portfolio on CD or DVD), a presentation metaphor (for example, gallery or diary), and the navigational master plan. The chapter on copyrights and attribution are worth the cover price alone. (For example, do you know who owns the artwork you just created for that latest brochure? Do you know how to present a large project on which you worked as part of a team?)
Throughout the book, Baron profiles some stellar examples of digital portfolios, most of which are viewable online, for example, illustrator Michael Bartalos's Web site at bartalos.com. And the appendices offer even more resources to help and inspire you. --Angelynn Grant
Book Description
The world has gone digital--which means that a paper portfolio is no longer good enough. These days, as a creative professional, you're expected to be able to show your work on demand--whether that means emailing it to a client, displaying it on a Web site, or delivering it on CD or DVD. This book shows you how. Using a combination of step-by-step instructions and inspiring examples, veteran author
Cynthia Baron takes you through the entire process of designing a digital portfolio--from developing a concept and choosing a medium, to scanning work created with traditional materials; optimizing digitized art; repurposing digital material; creating a portfolio Web site, CD, or DVD; producing a portable portfolio; and avoiding technical pitfalls when digitizing, organizing, and delivering the final product. You'll also find loads of insights from the professionals who evaluate artist portfolios everyday--agency heads, art directors, and designers--plus handy checklists, a run-down of dos and don'ts, case studies, and tips.
Customer Reviews:
comprehensive material........2006-03-01
Most artists can't do everything - usually they are somewhere in the middle of a chain of production responsiblities that don't include the skillsets involved with presenting a portfolio, digital or otherwise. Many points of insider knowledge are invaluable - I was on the cusp of using PowerPoint for my CD portfolio (my wife has strong skills with this) before being warned that this bussiness presentation software's would be viewed with derision by art directors, and that a high resolution version of a website format is the way to go here - this one parcel of knowledge was worth the price of the book alone, but it is far from the only lesson imparted. Highly recommended - it doesn't stray into realms of esoterica for the sake of pagecount.
Great beginners guide.......2005-08-12
This handbook is targeted at beginners in designing portfolios to submit their artwork or photos when job hunting. It is filled with information, however most is very basic and will only be a review for most readers.
Superb resource for a wide variety of portfolio formats.......2004-11-14
If you set can aside the near 100% focus on digital media (though it is excellent for that kind of format) and not hyperventilate in feeling like you need to come up with Flash or DVDs after reading this, it offers solid points on portfolio content, whatever format you choose.
It covers what should go in, what should not go in, how much should go in, how/if to deal with process pieces, storyboarding,
thematic ties to pull a disparate portfolio together, and sage advice on basics like the kinds of written copy you want to include, such as design briefs, problem statements, and tag lines. It's my favorite book for this effort right now. My husband's, too. I have to pry it off his desk.
It's also savvy when it comes to marketing, so I think it will have a long shelf life in my library for the days when I need to market myself on other things besides landing a job, like marketing my firm.
It has some printed web site design examples which offer visual eye inspiration for printed page layout. It even has great image workflow tips, towards preserving the best image quality with the least needed resolution, that are comprehensible to the lay person as well as meaningful to someone with a high degree of digital photographic processing background.
One of the Best Books on the Topic.......2004-05-07
This is one of the best books on its topic that I have ever seen. From the title, I expected to find advice on preparing images for the screen, how to put them on a CD or DVD, etc. Those things are there, but the book begins in a logical place that I wouldn't have considered. Brown's approach is truly holistic.
Check out page 23 for the first page of a three-page self assessment check list. It has you evaluate your professional strengths and weaknesses, goals and personality.
Chapter 3 asks you a bunch of questions to help you identify who your audience really is and focus on them.
The rest of the book covers various digital formats, how to organize your work, how to get images of 3D and oversized work into your portfolio, including choosing a camera and setting up for shooting.
Ms. Brown covers editing your images to remove the most common problems, such as moire, sharpening needs, bad crops, etc. And ... she devotes a section to creating written content to accompany your stunning images, telling you how to write to that audience you defined earlier.
She explains the differences between a monitor screen and a printed page. You need to know that to design the correct interface for your portfolio. She also has a full chapter devoted to marketing and copyright issues.
The entire book is scattered with quotes (in friendly green type) from experts and those who have gone before you. The quotes tell you what agencies are looking for in a portfolio, how others have found success at this, what things you can do to streamline the process, etc.
The definitive resource.......2004-02-21
For several months I searched for an appropriate textbook for a course that I was developing. Several days prior to the deadline for the course outline, "Designing a Digital Portfolio " was published. After reading the book, I realized this was the authoritative text for anyone in a creative field. The book asks and answers all the essential questions. It is perfect for the technological savvy multimedia programmer or for any artist with limited technology expertise. I urge anyone who is even considering developing a digital portfolio to buy this book. Without qualification, this is the most valuable book on the market
Multimedia Portfolio Instructor/Art Institute/Art Institute Online
Subject Matter Expert / Curriculum Development Multimedia Portfolio
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- DOUG MILLSTIEN IS OUT OF THIS WORLD
- Setting your brand on fire.
- my review
- Not Hype! A System for Reality...and innovation.
- Beyond the Frontiers - A genetic approach to the Brand
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Firebrands: Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet Age
Doug Millison , and
Michael Moon
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Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master
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Marketing by the Dashboard Light
ASIN: 0072124490 |
Book Description
This book explains digital branding and how to implement it in the current marketplace.
Download Description
This book explains digital branding and how to implement it in the current marketplace.
Customer Reviews:
DOUG MILLSTIEN IS OUT OF THIS WORLD .......2007-08-07
This person cant write if his life depended on it, i read it and now used it for a door stop. I wouldnt recommend this to anyone. I might use it if hes lucky for my son to sit on at the dinner table.
Setting your brand on fire........2001-06-09
There are so many books on the market that discuss the concept of 'brand' from so many different points of view, that it's difficult to sort out the good from the bad. This is one of the good ones.
Moon and Millison define the basic concepts around brand. They explain in clear buzzword-light language what influences the growth and positioning of a brand. Finally, they provide ample and well-explained pointers to further reading to help understand some of their basic ideas more clearly.
As a consultant working for a systems integrator, one of the things that impressed me the most was the focus on execution. Many books about branding seem to imply that the technical details are irrelevant to brand success, but _Firebrands_ makes the point that a relationship with a customer only has brand value when supported by appropriate policies, training, and technical infrastructure. This is a message that can't be, IMO, repeated often enough.
Well worth the time to read.
my review.......2001-03-08
I have read Firebrands and found it extremely useful. As a systems integrator in St. Louis, I have used this book to help my clients understand the importance of a technical infrastructure in building a vibrant brand.... Mind you, this is not a 60 second brand manager book.
Not Hype! A System for Reality...and innovation........2001-03-05
Firebr@nds is not a bedside book, it's a cookbook, a tool for being AT CAUSE when it comes to building successful, powerful communications for the internet.
As a Technology Interface Architect , the building of brand into the interaction of the product is vital to it's success.
My clients over the past 12 years have been besieged by what appears to them this mysterious thing out there that will grow over some process, that we will somehow invoke, and it will be successful if the powers that be are on our side.
This book makes it all very clear, while eliciting sympathy for all of us who have built brands. A genuine appreciation for its complexity is gained as you read a systemization of brandbuilding in Firebr@ands.
Moon has given us a thorough and deep taxonomy for building the brand from many different pragmatic angles. The dramatic distinctions in language make it easy to use the language as a tool in any company when it comes to educating organizations in building brand.
This is a book that I will return to over and over again as I help my clients grow their products into the future. It was a very brave, and necessary book to write. BRAVO!!!!
Beyond the Frontiers - A genetic approach to the Brand.......2001-03-01
As the Chief Technical Officer of a Texas based e-services and print communication firm, I live in this interactive brandspace on a daily basis. The problem with this brave new world of pixels is simply that much is said and much is written but little intelligent communication occurs. I find the innovative and far reaching approach taken by Michael Moon to be the de facto foundation for the next "big thing".
The approach that one must take to these new media spaces and channels is not readily discernible from the clearly defined trails blazed in the more traditional areas of branding. This new territory is as different as the Earth is from the Moon [no pun intended]. The book travels beyond the areas marked as "unknown - there be dragons here" and opens a clear and understandable path into formerly mysterious areas.
What we need out here in the field is less hype and more substance. Firebrands is a rational, ground breaking treatise on the evolution of Branding. This is a pivotal work that serves as a wonderful deskside companion, as indispensible to me as my spell checker or my browser.
Michaels' best practices mental evolution from the time of the Jeff Martin led Digital Brand Building Seminars of the mid-90's to this opus show an extraordinary depth and breadth of thought and research . The Firebrands book is the Gray's Anatomy of Brand "science".
As my company moves forward with ground breaking, market defining services in the area of brand guaranty we will continue to consult the Firebrands roadmap. We anxiously await any follow-up materials that might come from this mind trust.
Be warned - this is not a shallow pop-business, executive book of the hour read. This is a genetic level approach to a new mindset. It must be read slowly, deliberately, and with a totally open mind. The graphics are not simply illustrative they are literally a book unto themselves. Read this brandspace atlas one chapter at a time, review the graphics, and with time and reflection you will understand.
Book Description
A breakthrough book by the author of the best-selling Emotional Branding and Citizen Brand
* Insider's look at creating powerful, compelling brands and identities
* Exciting new ideas for using design to drive consumers to embrace brands
Brandjam, the follow-up to the groundbreaking best-seller Emotional Branding, presents a powerful new concept from renowned designer and business guru Mark Gobé. The Brandjam concept is about innovation, intuition, and risk. Gobé explains how design is the "instrument" companies can use for jazzing up a brand--how design puts the face on the brand and creates an irresistible message that connects buyers to the product in a visceral way. Using jazz as his metaphor, he shows how the instinctive nature of the creative process leads to unusual solutions that make people gravitate toward a brand and make brands resonate with people by bringing more joy into their lives. It explores how design represents the personality of a company and provides its window to the world. Brandjam is an inspiration for brands and people as it reveals the transforming impact brands have on their audience.
Customer Reviews:
A top pick........2007-07-07
Brands today must shift from commodity status to associations with emotion and inspiration - thus 'brandjamming', a metaphor Marc Gobe uses to support the idea that brands which succeed best connect with culture and emotions. Chapters tell how to encourage collaboration, innovation and intuition to support 'brandjamming', drawing on the author's vast experience as CEO of one of the world's top ten brand image creation firms. College-level students of business will find this real-world perspective goes beyond theory to create a foundation of standards and basics essential to re-vamping the brand association process, making BRANDJAM: HUMANIZING BRANDS THROUGH EMOTIONAL DESIGN a top pick.
Brandjam: Right on the money!.......2007-05-17
Brandjam from Marc Gobe is right on the money. Marketers must start paying attention to the emotional connection between the brand and the consumer. Gobe leverages his vast experience to demonstrate this in a clear and easy to understand way, using very relevant examples. A great marketing book.
Stephan Sigaud,
President
Harris Interactive Loyalty
Book Description
Integrating marketing theory with Internet reality, this book helps readers develop the skills necessary to understand and integrate Internet technology and characteristics into marketing strategy. It helps them recognize and understand the implications of the Internet not only as a marketplace, but also as a set of tools and opportunities for conducting a wide variety of marketing activities that do not involve product-related transactions (e.g., marketing research, customer service). Includes real-world examples. The Nature of the Internet Influence on the Marketing Environment. A Framework for Understanding Marketing and the Internet. Consumers and the Internet Environment. Marketers and the Internet Environment. Technology and the Internet Environment. Policymakers and the Internet Environment. Strategic Marketing Planning with the Internet. Marketing Research and the Internet. The Internet as Content: Digital and Physical Products. The Internet as Channel: Aspects of Distribution. The Internet as Communication: A Computer-Mediated Medium. Business-to-Business Marketing with the Internet. Managing the Internet: Decision Support Tools. For anyone doing business on the Internet.
Customer Reviews:
Great New Internet Marketing Book.......2001-01-17
I recently purchased this book and have found it to be extremely helpful in understanding the intersection of marketing and the Internet. I am a computer engineer trying to better comprehend the world of business. This book provides both theoretical and practical insights that have been extremely useful. The book is very well written in a style that is accessible to an outsider, yet covers the topics in significant depth.
Book Description
The rapid evolution of digital photography and the ease of distribution over the Internet has transformed the photo industry. Everything from marketing and sales to competitive pricing and job security has been affected. And now that the flood gates have come down, everyone from semi-pros to amateurs to the common consumer affects how business is done, whether it's pricing, assignments, or just getting your photos seen by potential buyers. In a market once dominated by agencies and seasoned professionals, succeeding in today's industry demands a fresh new approach. For those who are just starting out or those who are established photographers trying to compete more effectively in a changing market, Dan Heller's book Profitable Photography in the Digital Age provides a new and progressive approach to understanding and succeeding in the photography business in today's market. It will help established photographers find new strategies for diversifying revenue streams and adding nontraditional sources of income. For serious amateurs, this book explores realistic perspectives on what to expect and how to gauge their aptitudes for making it in this highly competitive arena. Profitable Photography in the Digital Age shows how photography is more accessible than ever to the average person, even though making money with photography can be more challenging. It also offers new ways of teaching (and learning) the basics of the photo industry apart from just making an impressive portfolio or reaching the right art director. It outlines some of the available paths to success, examines the methods available and provides the analysis on which methods achieve the desired results. While there is heavy competition, many new opportunities have opened up and more buyers are entering the field. "The digital era isn't just about making great websites or being great at photoshop," says Heller. "One must be able to work within that and many other mediums to broaden one's reach and market segments. What's more," he says, "the buyer's perception of images and the culture of the business has also taken an abrupt turn that isn't as accommodating to the traditional models as it once was." By following Heller's strategies and integrating the concepts presented in Profitable Photography in the Digital Age, anyone who wants to have a career in the photo industry will have the tools he or she needs to succeed.
Customer Reviews:
A good dose of reality.......2007-08-12
The best book on the Photography business to date. It may be hard for some to swallow, but sometimes when you are forced to look in the mirror and evaluate the decisions you have made in your life and career, it's easy to criticize the one forcing you to do so. Dan has written a book that should be a classic for anyone even thinking about making money from photography at any level, be it just an amateur wanting to make a few bucks to support his equipment habit, or the serious photography looking to make a true career in the business. A must read for the new and the seasoned.
Profitable Photography is tough to get through.......2007-07-18
While this book was intended to be directed to photographers, I feel it is firstly just another sales book. The jargon and hairsplitting discussion on career direction and the importance of branding your product had a few nuggets of helpful information, nonetheless finding a way to apply it to my needs was a stretch.
yet another chatty "how to" book.......2007-03-18
I was all excited after reading about him on-line and I had the impression this would truly be an insightful book. Well, he talks a lot, most of it common sense. I'm pretty disappointed by it.
Just the Facts........2007-01-12
It's what you need to know. The good, the bad, and the ugly truths about the photography business. If you only want to buy one book on this topic, this is it.
Very well written book.......2007-01-12
I thoughly enjoyed reading this book. It has very up to date info about the internet. I also thought he covered many topics like business types, stock agencies, and webpages better than other books I have read. Highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to go into stock photography business. This book mainly deals with stock photography business, not other types of businesses.
Book Description
A practical and inspirational resource book of templates.
The Packaging Templates Sourcebook presents a stunning showcase of 140 new, innovative and classic packaging and paper engineering ideas across a variety of areas. Accompanying each project is a detailed template, which shows the reader how to copy, fold and construct each project from material that is widely available. The book will provide a source of inspiration for graphic and packaging designers, both student and professional alike, as it explores the fundamentals of a package at its most basic level. Covering areas as diverse as food and drink, product packaging, promotional material, CDs and DVDs, books, retail and stationary, it is a completely comprehensive guide. The book also includes gatefold templates, some insert card packaging concepts, and a CD-Rom of templates and finished packages, allowing designers to create presentations for their clients.
Customer Reviews:
Wow!.......2007-09-25
I love this book. The templates are amazing, but easy enough to alter into your own design. Sometimes as a student you need a starting point. My last project turned out amazing and I believe I'll use this book as a reference for along time. I am even interested in other books by this author and Rotovision Publishing. The pictures are great and the design on the packaging a lone is worth it. This book is one of my best if not the best design books I have and more affordable. I honestly would have paid more for this book. My classmates are also looking into buying this book after they viewed my copy. I believe this is a must in a design students library. It gives you inspiration and shows you what good package design is, believe me there are some terrible books out there.
Average customer rating:
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Cases in E-Commerce
Jeffrey F. Rayport ,
Bernard J. Jaworski , and
Jeffrey Rayport
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
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| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
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ASIN: 0072500956 |
Book Description
37 Harvard-style cases featuring top companies competing in the New Economy. Cases are organized to facilitate discussion of the decision-making process for formulating New Economy enterprise strategy. The presentation mirrors the organization of the eCommerce textbook written by the authors.
Book Description
Digital Play is a major study of the video and computer game industry, from its origins as a minor spin-off of the military-industrial complex to its contemporary position as a major global media business as big as Hollywood. It discusses how interactive games affect theoretical debates about the information society, gives an historical account of the rise and fall of companies such as Atari, Nintendo, and Sega and of today's savage competition between Microsoft and Sony, and offers critical analysis of gender and violence in games, the marketing strategies of game companies, intellectual property and work in the game industry, and the problems and possibilities of on-line games. Digital Play is a book for anyone interested in the cutting edge of virtual culture, or in a digital business that is transforming everyday life.
Customer Reviews:
Critical postmodern analysis.......2003-08-06
"Digital Play" critically analyzes the video and computer game industry and theorizes about its significance in contemporary society. The book is somewhat unusual in that it is the collaborative product of three authors, but the writing seems to blend perfectly and makes for a consistent and high-quality read. The end product is an accessible and entertaining book that could serve to introduce a wide audience to critical postmodern analysis.
Nick Dyer-Witheford of "Cyber-Marx" fame is one of the authors. Mr. Dyer-Witheford's influence is discernable in at least several sections where the post-Marxist themes of corporate control versus freedom that are evident in "Cyber-Marx" are used to very good effect. First, he deflates the wildly optimistic claims of techno-utopians such as Alvin Toffler, reminding us that technology remains in service to corporate profits and therefore narrows and limits the possibility of "choice, interactivity and empowerment" that digital games purportedly offer. Second, Mr. Dyer-Witheford points to piracy and hacking as evidence that freedom from corporate control and a return to "play" in its purest sense may yet remain possible.
The authors contend that video games are worthy of serious study because they represent the "ideal-type" postmodern commodity. So whereas the automobile is closely associated with the "industrial capitalism" of the Fordist era, the video game embodies the "information capitalism" of today's "perpetual innovation" society.
The ideal-type commodity does not mean that it avoids crisis, however. The authors posit that the accelerating "circuits" of technology, culture and marketing that drive postmodern society in general and the video game business in particular "can be broken or come into contradiction" in numerous ways. The authors go on to critique each of these three circuits and produce many pages of very thoughtful analysis.
For example, an interesting aspect of the industry that is often overlooked is manufacturing and the international division of labor. Electronic game equipment is often produced by proletariat labor in the poor countries of the South for the benefit of relatively wealthy consumers in the North. The authors point out that the game industry, like most capitalist enterprises that exploit the so-called free trade system in search of higher profits, will find it difficult to develop new markets for its products until it is willing to pay its third-world factory workers enough money to stimulate demand. In fact, the authors state that corporate managers should not be too surprised when intellectual property gets pirated by people who feel that they have been cheated by the economic system.
But probably the most stinging criticism concerns the close connection of games with Cold War research and development. The "militarized masculinity" that characterizes so many games originated here and has been perpetuated by corporate marketing in pursuit of profits. But the authors point out that if the industry fails to find successful alternative game genres and graphic violence continues to escalate, future interest in gaming may be jeopardized even as the potential damage to children exposed to such psychic intensity remains unknown.
In short, "Digital Play" is highly recommended to everyone interested in deconstructing the multi-faceted and increasingly fantastical world that has been brought to us by the "military and entertainment" complex.
A clever look at the global industry of interactive gaming.......2003-07-31
Books on electronic gaming and video game culture predominantly concentrate on the history of the industry or on nostalgic returns to retro gaming, often punctuated with coloured photos and screenshots. Digital Play is one of the few books currently available that provides an insightful look into the social, cultural, and economic relationships between game players, and the engaging game texts, technologies, and market forces of the information age. As interactive gaming continues to establish itself as a major global media business, it becomes increasingly important for us to employ a critical perspective of the blossoming industry. Kline, Witheford, and Peuter's Digital Play couldn't have arrived at a better time.
Digital Play is cleverly divided into three segments, each focusing on different bearings of interactive gaming but effectively converging into a single conclusive "coda." Discussion begins with a theoretical approach to analyzing gaming and its industry as it relates to circuits of interactivity including culture, technology, and marketing. Theoretical concepts collected from media theorists Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams, are successfully transferred to the medium of the videogame. What follows is a look at the existence of interactive gaming in a post-Fordist, and postmodern society of information technology and hyper-reality. This facilitates the understanding of historical circumstances of developing circuits of interactivity outlined in earlier chapters. While the first segment may seem theoretically and linguistically intense, it remains deeply involving and is ever mindful of the topic at hand: video games.
The second segment of Digital Play covers the historical background of games from their early beginnings in the military-industrial complex to the relentless corporate firefight known to many as the "console wars." However, unlike previous electronic gaming texts, the historical accounts are retold stressing the importance of technology, culture, and marketing. Digital Play thus provides a fresh and extremely entertaining parade through electronic gaming's past. What readers may find most absorbing in this stretch are the political-economic struggles endured by the gaming companies (Atari for example) who pioneered the industry only to meet with fierce competition and an unstable market for interactive entertainment.
The initial chapters of Digital Play concentrated on technology and communication studies, and the following chapters zeroed-in on history and marketing practices. However, this theoretical triad could not be complete without the presence of one more area of study: game culture as an industry and practice. In a chapter entitled "Workers and Warez" the authors examine gaming technologies on global levels of production and consumption, such as the exploitation of off-shore labourers and increasing levels of hacking, console "modding", and software piracy. Subsequent chapters provide studies in branding and licensing, violence and gender, and my personal favourite...political economy. Chapter 12 assembles the major themes of Digital Play, suggesting that Electronic Arts' best-selling game "The Sims" can be viewed as a microcosm of our own capitalist society, wrought with consumerist ideology. While we manipulate the digital Barbie dolls of our virtual technology, so too does a system of communication technologies, global enterprise, and postmodern digital culture manipulate our symbolic relationship with the logic of a capitalist system.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Digital Play and wouldn't hesitate to purchase any game-related books that any of the authors might publish in the future. Digital Play offers an engaging critical look at the gaming world's industry, technology, and culture, and should not be ignored by those looking to study interactive games from an academic viewpoint or by those simply looking for enjoyable reading.
Amazon.com
You don't have to look far to see that technology is driving today's economy. Turn on CNBC, open The Economist, scan the Wall Street Journal--you'll find that technology is the prime force creating growth in almost every industry. In Unleashing the Killer App, authors Larry Downes and Chunka Mui look at the dynamics of technological change and its potential to create "killer apps." The authors describe a killer app as a product or service that "wind up displacing unrelated older offerings, destroying and re-creating industries far from their immediate use, and throwing into disarray the complex relationships between business partners, competitors, customers, and regulators of markets." Examples of killer apps throughout history include the Welsh longbow, the pulley, the compass, moveable type, and the Apple Macintosh. And today, with our increasingly networked economy (for example, the World Wide Web), killer apps are appearing all around us.
Downes and Mui argue that the dominant trend behind the proliferation of killer apps is a combination of Moore's Law, which states that the processing power of the CPU doubles every 18 months, and Metcalfe's Law, which observes that the value of a network increases dramatically with each node that's added to it. These two laws are fundamentally changing how businesses interact with each other and with their customers. To exploit these changes, the authors outline 12 points for designing a digital strategy to help you identify and create killer apps in your own organization. The book includes dozens of examples of how killer apps were discovered and implemented.
Unleashing the Killer App provides an excellent framework for rethinking the nature of business in today's wired economy. No matter the size of your company or what it does--health care, publishing, or fast food--there's probably a killer app lurking somewhere. This book will help you find it. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
Now in Paperback--A Business Week Bestseller! Over 100,000 hardcover copies sold!
When technologies, products, and services converge in radical, creative new ways, a killer app can emerge--a new application so powerful that it transforms industries, redefines markets, and annihilates the competition. Companies large and are swiftly attempting to remake themselves into organizations that nurture killer apps and successfully translate their digital strategy into market dominance.
With
Unleashing the Killer App, Downes and Mui offer a progressive guide to transforming your company into a place where killer apps are born. Drawing from their experience and research with leading global businesses, the authors:
Identify the twelve fundamental design principles for building killer apps
Illustrate these principles with classic stories from history and examples from a wide range of industries that have successfully developed killer apps
Examine the economic consequences of the diminishing transaction costs in cyberspace
Describe how to integrate digital strategy into an organization's planning process to create new markets, form new customer relationships, and change the product line.
Unleashing the Killer App provides the tools, the techniques, and the proof that you need to incubate--perhaps even release--the killer app within your organization. Also available in hardcover; ISBN 087584801X, $24.95.
Customer Reviews:
Ok...but no hurrahs here.........2007-01-07
I thought that this book would be a little more than what it ended up being. I don't recall it keeping my attention for long, as I bought it well over a year ago.
I think that the Blue Ocean Strategy book is what this book should have been and is a much better read regarding development for market segment domination.
Still useful, but discretion needed.......2006-11-13
Being written few years before the internet bubble burst, this books shares the optimism and the hype common in those days - along with belief in a revolution in which everything would change, when those awaken would prosper, an those unprepared would die.
Exaggerations aside, it describes some very interesting key concepts, some very well known by the average public (Moore's law), others not so well (Metcalfe's law) and others yet known mostly by economists only (transaction costs and they relation to corporate sizes), combines them and develops some ideas from them. You can disagree to the conclusions, and certainly some rosy predictions the book made were proved wrong, but many clever insights make worth the reading.
Where the knowledge economy meets Coasian Economics.......2006-01-27
A Killer App is an invention, product or service that changes the world dramatically and quickly. Today, killer applications seem to be coming at a remarkable rate, threatening to overwhelm and destroy entrenched companies in long-standing industries. You must learn how to design Killer Apps in your company, say the authors, and you must have the courage to implement them, even if they may destroy your current products and services.
The authors have outlined twelve principles of Killer App design:
Reshaping the Landscape
1. Outsource to the customer. The customer is the best customer service representative and the best product developer.
2. Cannabalize your markets, before your competitors do it for you. The Killer Apps your company designs may threaten your existing products and services. You must implement them before your competitors make you irrelevant.
3. Treat each customer as a market segment of one. Technology makes it possible to create a customer offering that is unique, every time.
4. Create communities of value. The internet creates communities of like-minded people. This creates an opportunity for effective, targeting marketing.
Building New Connections
5. Replace rude interfaces with learning interfaces.
6. Ensure continuity for the customer, not yourself.
7. Give away as much information as you can. Balance the value of proprietary value against the potential of business partners to add value by using it.
8. Structure every transaction as a joint venture. The better you are at forming, executing and completing joint ventures, the better positioned you will be to exploit new opportunities.
Redefining the Interior
9. Treat your assets as liabilities. The true value in your organization is its information, not its possessions.
10. Destroy your value chain, before your competitors do it for you.
11. Manage innovation as a portfolio of options. Redefine your risk assessment outside of the traditional ROI model.
12. Hire the children.
Are you on the bench or the playing field?.......2005-04-27
"Are you going to be part of creating the future or are you just going to be a spectator - the choice is yours." - Michael A. Davis
According to Bill Gates "Going digital will put you on the leading edge of a shock wave of change." Maybe you missed the dot-com boom. Are you going to miss the Wireless boom - which will change the world a thousand times over. The time is now to seize opportunity and the "Killer App" will help you do it.
What exactly is a killer app?
"Killer App - a new application so powerful that it transforms industries, redefines markets, and annihilates the competition." Not just a recent digital age phenomenon; inventions like the compass, moveable type, eyeglasses, the steam engine, and lightbulbs have impacted society in a huge way. Downes and Mui did a fantastic job of describing the characteristics of true killer apps and have aptly illustrated the degree of impact they can have on society.
You certainly don't have to look far to see that technology, particularly the Internet, is driving today's economy. Turn on CNBC, read Business Week or browse the Wall Street Journal - you'll find that technology is the prime force creating growth in almost every industry.
Downes and Mui argue that the dominant trend behind the proliferation of killer apps is a combination of Moore's Law (CPU processing power doubles every 18 months) and Metcalfe's Law (network value increases dramatically with each additional user.) These two laws are fundamentally changing how businesses interact with each other and with their customers. Owing to the today's rapidly changing business environment, business owners will inevitably lose out to competition if they're not utilizing the latest technology.
Unleashing the Killer App is divided into three parts:
Digital Strategy
Designing the Killer App
Unleashing the Killer App
In Part I, there is a brief discussion of one "killer app" in the Middle Ages, the stirrup, which added mounted cavalry to the battle equation. The "lowly stirrup" played a singular role in rearranging the political, social, and economic structure of medieval Europe.
In Part II, what they refer to as "a few rules of thumb." They suggest three stages of "killer app" design and carefully explain each. They identify 12 specific principles on which to base the design process.
In Part III, they shift their attention to "Unleashing the Killer App" and correctly stress the importance of communication, one which "speaks with the language of ideas, scenarios, options, and what-ifs."
Think of and measure your daily operations as a series of unique transactions. Then focus on how these transaction costs can approach zero. With technology allowing for greater interactivity, the ability exists to create online communities where people can share in ways never imagined.
Unleashing the Killer App is an awesome book that will certainly make you think about ways to ride the waves of technological change surrounding us. With that said, it is prudent to consider both traditional and digital strategy, particularly in light of the Dot Com Bust, when developing strategic plans. Two interesting concepts are illustrated in Table 3.1 "Strategic Planning vs Digital Strategy," p. 59 and Figure 3.1 "The New Forces," p. 65.
Michael Davis, President - Brencom Strategic Business Consulting
This I/T technologist now thinks digital.......2005-02-05
For technologists that have worked in the I/T field for twenty years or more, it is easy to find ourselves reacting poorly to technology changes and business opportunities due to a lack of clear understanding of how digital strategies are affecting business economics, lifestyles, and our jobs. "Unleasing the Killer App" is applicable to technologists, managers and business analysts alike; but reading it from the viewpoint of a technologist, it forced me to take an introspective look at how I provide service to my clients using the paradigm of "digital strategies for market dominance" as presented by the authors.
Part one introduces generation defining technologies, i.e. "Killer Apps", the new economics, and the "digital strategy". The theories of Gordon Moore (Moore's Law), Robert Metcalfe (Metcalfe's Law) and Ronald Coase (economist) are used by the authors to describe the "Law of Diminishing Firms". In short, my take on the matter is that businesses must create "flat" decentralized management support organizations to reduce transaction costs or risk being diminished; this includes I/T service organizations.
Part two presents twelve principles of "Killer App Design". Of major significance to technologists is the idea to "outsource to the customer". What better way to drive down the cost of transactions than to design systems that allow the customer to bypass customer representatives entirely. Another significant principle is to "give away as much information as you can" to open up interfaces that will create new markets and opportunities for integration. I believe one of the failures of I/T service organizations has been the propensity to create internal (closed system) applications, fostering proliferations of organizational silos.
Part three deals with implementing the "Killer App-digital strategy". I/T organizations are struggling to balance investments between new technology projects and growing operating costs. In almost all companies, those responsible for operations and maintenance are also responsible for strategizing new technology directions. As discussed in chapter 8, managing innovation requires observing technology trends and implementing practices that drive change based on the new technology. The author states, "Succeeding at these early stages of digital strategy development requires substantial changes to the organization" (p. 182). My perception is that I/T organizations should consider shifting experienced technology specialists from the operations areas into the strategic technology areas to stay ahead of the technology wave or risk being swept away by it.
Although "Unleashing the Killer App" was written in 1998, the principles are still applicable today. It is a must read for any technologist that cannot determine whether his I/T service organization is simply a provider of technology solutions designed to meet business requirements or an I/T organization that provides technology solutions that drive the business.
Product Description
Marketing in the early 21st century is dominated by two approaches, neither of which is visible to the naked eye: the use of data to define and shape human affairs into machine-readable form and the effort to create and sustain ongoing two-way relationships with customers. The former is one way human life is being subjugated to the regime of the machine; the latter is one way the individual may one day emerge from within the datascape. A post-modern perspective is used to reveal both the "kaleidoroscope" of data and the "raw immaterials" of relationships in two companion essays.
Customer Reviews:
Rebecca Nailed It.......2007-03-18
Rebecca's review is spot-on. I could read this book several times and get something new out of it each time. Ellis succinctly captures the changes in consumer-marketer interaction and the new 21st century value exchange and does a great job of putting it in historical and philosophical context.
Big Thoughts on Marketing .......2007-03-09
Most books on business (particularly those by self-proclaimed "gurus") seize on a single idea. With terrier-like tenacity they explain it, illustrate it, present case studies of it, then explain it yet again, until a readers feels she's entered some sort of textual version of "Groundhog's Day."
"Marketing in the In-Between," takes the opposite approach. It packs so many clusters of thought, ideas, revelations and connections on every page, the reader will need to repeatedly dip in to glean all the thoughts. It challenges readers to truly ponder and to question the basic precepts and practices upon which marketing is based.
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Books Index
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