This book has it all, a great case study and plenty of worked examples.. the really good thing is this inst theory it all actually happened.

Its full of easy to implement branding ideas for just about any web site.

Great book, funny in places so it makes it enjoyable to read as it is.

To find out where a state of cities chamber of commerce, then one should use this source, i.e.,World Chamber of Commerce Directory June 2001 (World Chamber of Commerce Directory)
by Jan Pierce (Editor). In here one will find out that Michael Gerke is the representative for Winter Area, WI's chamber of commerce. It lists his title, their web address and regular address along with the phone number. It also has a nice part with state boards of tourism, foreign chambers of commerce and their tourist board equivelents. Highly Recommended.

* * *

I come from a large company doing business on the Internet
and was responcible for proposing new business to get into.

I would be told it would take more computers, software,
network equipment, teams of people, lots of money and months
to implement the eCommerce side of the these new business.

I left this large corporation.

After reading Michael Knowles book I started a new business
on my own and in weeks have the business on line and taking
credit card orders for our packeged solutions.

All with no computers, no software, no teams of people and with
almost no money we are making money profitably.

I just hope everyone doesn't see how easy this is.

Thank you Michael.

* * *

I found the book very engaging and I read it from cover to cover in one sitting. It explores the psychological aspects of internet marketing in a way that hasn't been presented before. Plenty of useful information to apply to your business right away. I highly recommend it.

I'm joining the herd (after you've read the book and you'll understand fully) and offering another rave review.

First of all, here's what this book isn't. It's NOT a detailed, how-to Internet marketing plan. If you're totally new to Internet marketing, this may not be the book for you.

If you already know a little - or even know a lot - about marketing online, Mind Control Marketing will shock you out of your lethargy, spin your world upside down and give you a totally new way of looking at what you're doing.

This ex-military intelligence officer is a online tactical genius who takes advantage of the fact that the Internet is one of the last great, largely-unrestricted frontiers. Now he reveals insights and strategies so that you can too. Riveting stuff.

That's enough writing... I have to rush off to my web sites and start making some changes.

As an NLP trainer I've read a lot of books on persuasion, influence, psychology, human relations, and marketing. NOTHING comes close to the hard hitting, cutting-edge, almost daring information this book brings to the table.

I rewrote my marketing letters after reading this book the NEXT day my company experienced measurable results (SALES!) using just a few of the concepts taught in this book.

I realize there were a lot of things I was doing online that weren't working. This book is one of the top 10 best business books out there, and by far, the most dynamic online marketing book.

Well worth the money.

I found Net Ready to be extremely helpful in understanding the critical success factors in migrating to the Internet Economy. Working for a large Investment Bank, I am continually searching for better business processes to manage aggressive deadlines and sensitive client information. The book challenges the reader to look beyond technology as the answer to improve efficiencies and focus on identifying the organizational impediments to E-enabling your business, the authors have coined them their 4 pillars of Net Readiness: leadership, governance, competencies, and technology.

For a non-techie business manager, Net Ready is a great reference for how to migrate your business to the Internet Economy. The in-depth Cisco case study highlights the true business benefits that can be achieved across functional areas of a company. The author's have taken their extensive Internet consulting expertise and married that with real-life implementation experience at Cisco Systems to deliver the premier Internet business transformation reference guide!

I found 'Net Ready' to be an exceptional read and am now keeping it on my desk in clear view as inspiration. The authors go well beyond sweeping generalizations made in other books. In this invaluable resource, specific criteria for success in the E-conomy are identified (the four pillars of Net Readiness) and tools are provided to help in getting started down the right path to being 'Net Ready' (mapping web initiatives to the e-business value matrix, use of the project prioritization matrix, and the Net Readiness Scorecard among others). This book is a literal road map for creating value in the E-conomy. If you are overwhelmed by the fast pace of change going on around you and are struggling with where to turn for help, I highly recommend you turn to 'Net Ready.'

The book offers a comprehensive review of business's critical aspects towards the net in the new economy. At the same time, the book provides hard core advice and guidance so that the reader can establish tangible goals for both the business, and customers. Goals that are to be exploited at a velocity and effectiveness that the new technology can provide. NetReady also emphasizes that we all are at a buyer's market; therefore, our success depends on our ability to implement the new business tools "in the way we do business, shop and live". Net Ready provides in detail the success story of Cisco, which by itself is outstanding.

Publishing magazine articles and seeing your name in the byline can be a lot of fun, but to be successful you must also treat it as a business. Many books today examine the writing aspects of submitting articles to magazines, but few really look at the business side of the process. Dr. Eva Shaw covers these business topics in a way that blends them into the writing process. Finding article ideas, analyzing the publications, contacting editors, writing the query, doing the research and submitting the articles are all discussed in a common sense, pragmatic way. This is a "must have" book for any writer's bookshelf.

Joseph Berke-- Freelance Writer/Photographer/Seminar and Workshop Instructor

Book Review by Maryanne Raphael, Writers World THE SUCCESSFUL WRITER'S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING MAGAZINE ARTICLES By Eva Shaw Ph.D., Published by Rodgers & Nelsen, Publishing Co., Loveland, Colorado The author of over 35 published books and over 1000 magazine articles, Eva Shaw knows the business of writing, loves it and enthusiastically shares it. In THE SUCCESSFUL WRITER'S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING MAGAZINE ARTICLES, she helps writers create exciting openings and develop a marketable, interesting style. She guides them from initial idea to printed article. This book contains the latest on current and future trends with advice on how to profit from them.. She devotes chapters to setting goals, querying, reading a magazine you want to write for, outlining with her delightful bubble method , doing meaningful research, and marketing yourself and your work. The combination of the personal and the technical makes compelling reading. The reader comes away from this book feeling empowered to write. Eva Shaw reminds us that this is the age of information and writers are needed to lead the way with inspirational, informative material. THE SUCCESSFUL WRITER'S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING MAGAZINE ARTICLES is a reference book to be used over and over. by Maryanne Raphael, Writers World email: maryanneraphael@juno.com

Wondering where to start to write and get published? "THE SUCCESSFUL WRITER'S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING MAGAZINE ARTICLES" provides answers in a concise easy-to-read format. Into this small book Eva Shaw, Ph.D., writer, teacher and lecturer, has packed twenty years of expertise and enthusiasm. She presents fresh and invigorating ideas. Are you an experienced writer struggling with drafts, submissions, rejects and contracts? This book offers a systematic business approach to every aspect of the writing craft from topic to publishing. It's quickly evident that Dr. Shaw understands people, loves writing and keeps up with trends. Her book evokes the same excitement for writing that one experiences in her lectures.

I originally bought this book because it covers everything you need to know about e-business. If you look at the table of contents, you'll find just about everything addressed. Very educational.

On the other hand, the book isn't just poorly edited, I don't think it was edited at all! There is least one grammatical error, or spelling error, per page. It appears as though the book was translated into English from a foreign language. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of grammatical trash. The editor should be fired. Really.

The book is really difficult to read due to the grammatical mistakes, odd use of commas and unusual way of phrasing common concepts. (Who actually translates the concept "unsuccessful" into the phrase "lacking in success"?)

At this price, I would wait for the next edition, and if I were the publisher, I'd get the next edition out FAST.

Most reviews dealing with this book relate on 2 points: - how great it is - how poorly edited it is The book web site " www.ebusinessrevolution has similar reviews. I would like to propose another view : This book is very good but adress only a specific public : - non technical people willing to understand e-biz related technologies and architecture - IT people willing to get a general survey on e-biz with a strong emphasis on technology

Obviously, the book is the best documented survey on the technical side of e-biz, it covers all its component and after reading it you'll understand why is JAVA so hot and XML so promising and how it works

On the other side, you will not be more knowledgeable about any business models or how you build you build your site to anticipate for performance deterioration. The "hello i'm on hte web to e-biz" framework is so obvious (by now, may be not the writing of the book) that it is not even relevant, also, the chapter on marketing is very limited.

The next edition of the book should focus on its strenghts : presenting web technologies, applications and products.

If you need a strong introduction to e-biz with technical emphasis, buy the book, other wise, go to more business oriented reading or concrete (how to) technical book)

While most books on Internet and Business drive either into Internet technologies or Business plans, this book is able to do the crossover between Technology and Business, placing Business drivers in the foreground, just as we see it happening right now on the Internet. While technology dominated the last few years, it is now the companies with the right business plan and the right technologies how are making the most profit. While explaining all relevant Internet technologies in-depth the book never forgets the reason for the technologie by going into detail on the business value of each technology and by presenting business plans where technologies might fit or not. Especially Chapter 3 with its complete overview is excellent. Chapter 5 is an outstanding compedium for every online marketeer and Chapter 16 brings the reader into a whole new world of ideas.

This book is written by the author of the best seller CreatingKiller Web Sites, which is apparently still a highly regarded book inthe industry. Overall, Futurize is an enjoyable journey through the thought process of how to convert today's management-led businesses into tomorrow's customer-led e-businesses.

The book is divided into four parts - Principles, Practices, Prototypes and Predictions. There are three additional sections that are found on the book's website. Clever, eh? In the first two parts, the author concentrates on what companies can do today to respond to the Customer-Led Revolution. In Part 3, Siegel shows how companies can change in the near future to implement these principles. And in the final section of the book, he focuses on the future of the e-Customer - a future that should arrive, in his estimation, by 2010, as most of the world goes online. The web site is not remarkable but I have book-marked several of the neighborhood pages - I think the "boot camp" is especially useful.

Siegel is a strong believer that, in business, the customer shapes the organization. He states that who your customers are, not what your mission statement is, will define your company in the future. The choice of these customer groups is a visionary choice, Siegel acknowledges. However, in his world, it is the last visionary choice your company will ever have to make. Once you've chosen them, your customers will guide you in making strategic decisions. Talk about your radicals!

The author lays the blame on management, not technology, for 90% of the problems companies have online today. He spends considerable time arguing for the need of a Chief Net Officer (CNO) within an organization - a position which, if successful, will no longer be needed once the business' transition has been made. He also is an advocate of allowing your customers to communicate with each other to build loyalty (he argues that branding isn't going to be as strong or important in the e-World).

Happy Reading!

I see only one flaw to David Siegel's new book: Like customers.com, it's arrived far too early to capture the imaginations of most business executives, its target audience. But for executives brave enough, smart enough, and awake enough, it's a great guide.

If you currently work to build websites for a company that hasn't quite gotten it, this book makes a good bolster, friend, and consultant you can send off to your executive team to help them see the path ahead.

At the very least, business folks can direct their executive teams and marketing and customer service groups and -- well, everybody -- to the Web Boot Camp Siegel hosts on the amazing companion website. That site, again targeted to busy business professionals, is a great service to web developers of all kinds.

If you can't get anybody at your company to look at the site or read this book and at least consider this sensible approach: Run, dear reader. Run like the wind. There are other companies out there who want smart people like you to help change the world.

"Futurize your Enterprise" of David Siegel is an excellent visionary book for every manager who wants to rethink business models and develop an E-strategy. It is not about "how to build a website" but how to build a web business. The book is divided into four parts:

"Principles" describes tools and methodologies to change a "management-led" and supply driven company into a "customer-led" company. This part is illustrated by real word examples like Toys-R-Us Direct and Hewlett-Packard. "In a customer-led environment everyone in the company is responsible for the customers experience". The principles part also contains a very clear description of Internet failures and the six most common mistakes companies make online. It also explains the natural development from brocureware Internet sites to real e-business. There is also a definition of different e-customers the transparency of the Internet.

"Practice" is the translation of the principles into practice. What does a company have to do to change into an e-business. There is a practical list of changes the company has to make and agenda's of meetings to organize those changes.

"Prototypes" contains a number of examples business categories like grocery stores, magazine publishers, steel fabricators, real estate clearing house, book superstore, software company etc. These examples use real-life examples as starting point, and show the many possibilities to improve the customer influence by the Internet.

"Predictions" shows speculative future scenario's in which Internet is no longer a tool but a platform for work, community-building and individual empowerment. The examples are fictional but very insightful and expiring. They show the possible developments into the year 2010 of the different roles of people like job seeker, homemaker, breadwinner, teenager, student, patient etc.

For retailers the prototypes of a grocery store and a book store are very interesting. "Futurize your Enterprise" does not touch the challenge of fulfillment of online retailing, but there is much attention for the possibility to add information to merchandise, and the importance to focus on different customer groups. For groceries these different customer groups might be households with young children, different religions with there own food restrictions, people with allergies etc. For bookstores Siegel does a good job trying to improve Amazon.com.

"Futurize your Enterprise" is focused very much on the culture, the mindset, the approach and the customers.

Siegels book is in my opinion a must for every manager who is planning to develop E-strategies. It bridges the huge gap between "Internet evangelists" and "How to"-books. The book is now the number one present for clients of my company.

Bruce Schneier's book is unique as an easy read for the layman, hoping to get a glimpse at a contemporary conundrum, as well as the IT professional, as a primer in information security. Don't expect to find specific solutions or product recommendations here. The real value of this book rests in its ability to make you step back and see the forest, recognizing that a winning record in information security begins with assessing and managing risk as well as accepting the human element as nearly always the weakest link.

The book paints a landscape of this fascinating field as a specialty in and of itself, aside from the every day work of the information technologist. When read by an IT professional with designs on entering this field, it provides a virtual working outline for study and the application of sound principles in the practice of information security.

Bruce is best known for his work in cryptography. It's the subject of about 36 pages in this book. But the entire book is premised on Bruce's "epiphanies" as he does an about face from an almost complete trust in this world of arcane mathematics and is compelled to seek a much broader understanding of the holistic realities of infosec. The reader travels along as he develops a new, pragmatic line of reasoning that naturally enlightens the reader. He is prescient in these pre-9/11 remarks (as we are coming to learn): "There are no technical solutions for social problems"....."technologies... like the x-ray machines and metal detectors at airports.....do nothing to stop professionals, but they keep all the amateurs from hijacking planes."

If you're interested in a brilliant piece of writing on the subject of security, you need go no further. This one is destined to become a classic in its realm.

Schneier is one of the front line people in computer security issues, and now he brings information to us all. This is a fairly accessible book, walking the reader through verious developed means of network and computer security and then punches holes in them. He shows how they can and sometimes don't work. But it's not all "this security is bad," it's an object lesson in keeping vigilant. Too often we try to heap on security only to make things too complicated and provide openings for exploitation. Or we put in state of the art check points to scans retinas, fingerprints, voice prints, code words and door lock codes only to find that the back door was left open. The biggest threat is not always from outside - it's the insider, either being malicious, or clueless and falling to social engineering.

This is a very good introduction and primer on security. It is written for the person with some computer and technology knowledge, but not necessarily a CS major or an engineer. I highly recommend this if you are interested in getting your bearings and your feet wet in the issue of digital security. You can go onto "Hacking Exposed" to see some of these attacks in action, or any one of the more technical security guides.

Security is really up to all of us. Read this.

This book introduces security and privacy to technical and non-technical readers alike. What I especially like are:

- Social aspects of security and privacy are addressed using the motives of attackers and broad profiles of attacker types, analysis of threats and countermeasures, and what it all means from legal and social perspectives.

- Easy introduction to security infrastructures. The author imparts a good deal of technical knowledge without overwhelming non-technical readers.

This book may initially disappoint technical readers who have read Mr. Schneier's earlier book (Applied Cryptography), but I can assure you that the technical underpinnings are only part of the picture. This book gives a complete view of all aspects of security, and is invaluable because it raises awareness of all issues. It's all the more valuable because it can be read and understood by a broad audience. There are two other books that I recommend in addition to this one: "Know Your Enemy: Revealing the Security Tools, Tactics, and Motives of the Blackhat Community" (Mr. Schneier wrote the preface to this book), and Richard Hunter's "World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing".

You wouldn't believe the questions I am asked. Occassionally, someone inquires, "What business should I go into to make money on the Internet?" Duh. Now I have a book to recommend: Webnomics.

Many Web marketing books are a thinly veiled Internet 101 wrapped in a business shell. Webnomics ("the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods, services, and ideas over the World Wide Web") is a careful reflection of what has worked on the Web and why it has worked. Schwartz organizes the book into "nine essential principles for growing your business on the Web," one per chapter, but don't mistake this for a simple book. Sure, the principle is simple, e.g., "#4 Consumers will shop online only for information-rich products." But why it is true, and how to see how this applies to your product or services, that is where Schwartz shines. Using examples from dozens of successful, and not so successful, Web sites, he outlines the reasons for their performance.

This isn't a book for the green Web marketer, but the more thoughtful one who is willing to analyze and think and learn. It is my pick for the top Web marketing book of 1997. -- Dr. Ralph F.Wilson, Editor, Web Marketing Today (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt)

I think Evan Schwartz has defined 9 good principles which could be really helpful to any e-commerce site owner who seeks to increase business. The 9 principles really do not change with every new computer chip or browser software created but rather hold true with most humans and what they are looking for on the Internet. Such principles like: add value to the information presented on your website, don't just make your site a virtual brochure but make it something interesting that people want to return to again and again. Give it a sense of community that makes people feel "at home" when visiting your site (like Amazon.) Other principles: traditional mass-media advertising (pushing your message on consummers) does not work on the Internet, rather advertisers need to seek information from users to customize the advertizements to Internet users' tastes and preferences (Amazon does this with its book recommendations based on which books you have ordered from the site.) Schwartz also states that even small e-commerce sites can compete with the "big boys" because the Internet provides a medium from which these sites can carve a niche market. Overall, this book is jammed with good ideas and case studies (though dated) that illustrate how each of his nine principles can be used to increase business. This book lays a good foundation for other books like Digital Darwinism or Net Success.

A previous review says this is all "common sense." Granted. But it is a structured packaging of important web business principles that nonetheless set off a few light bulbs in my head.

An easy read, Webonomics urges the reader to rise above the babbling techno-noise and stay true to the business purposes for offering web sites.

We have all experienced countless disappointments where a visit to a site left us unable to get information or interact effectively with the company behind the curtain. This book stresses the guidelines required to attract and keep users' attention: high quality information, self-service functionality, trust, and value-added rewards. There is a price to the programming and content development required to create that sort of interactive site, but if you don't, you'll just become some loose change on the floor of the web. Good book. Buy it.