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The Caring Economy
Business Prinicples for the New Digital Age
by Gerry McGovern
Published by Blackhall Publishing
1999
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
The growth of the Internet is leading to a change in the fundamental principles of business, leading to a new economy based upon nurturing relationships rather than predatory ones. This is the argument of Gerry McGovern, who analyzes the new Internet economy extensively in this thought-provoking book.
For instance, the Internet has transformed space, destroying distance in a way only anticipated by previous transportation and telecommunications technologies. Suddenly we can connect with anyone, anywhere in the world, as long as there is a computer link. A person can do business anywhere she can plug in the a modem on her laptop -- and the new generation of wireless handhelds don't even need that.
McGovern then examines the ways in which the shift to an information economy is changing the nature of value. As long as most goods were material in nature, scarcity determined value. To make a thing common was to cheapen it -- both in literal price and in perceived worth. Information, however, can be copied infinitely with extraordinary ease. No longer does one have to warehouse thousands of copies of a book -- all the digital copies of an ebook that anyone will ever need can be the same set of bytes on a hard drive somewhere. This change is already having profound effects on the concept of copyright, changes that traditional companies are fiercely resisting, as we have seen with the fight against Napster.
That is only the beginning of McGovern's study of the transforming power of the Internet. He examines numerous truths and myths about the information society, and looks at how community feeds commerce in the new online world. In several chapters he looks at the nature of computers, the Internet, networks and digital materials, and the economic implications of how these differ from traditional Industrial-Age infrastructures.
His final two chapters deal with the power and limits of branding online, and the new principles of business on the Internet. He shows why and how it pays to care on the new Internet economy, and why a simpler business model can often succeed where the more complex corporate models fail.
The world is changing, and business must change with it. This book will help you know where and how to change, so you don't get left behind.
Click here to buy The Caring Economy in hardcover.
Click here to buy The Caring Economy in paperback.
Review posted April 20, 2001
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