Written by March 1999
I vividly remember thinking how overly simple this sounded… it’s been over 7 years since I read this article… and it still as relevant today as it was the day I read it:
http://www.time.com/time/reports/gatesbook/gatesbook1.html
Some of the key messages that impacted me are:
“Since Michael Hammer and James Champy introduced the concept of reengineering in 1993, companies the world over have been re-examining their business processes. When I read their book, Reengineering the Corporation, three of their ideas really stood out for me. The first is that you need to step back periodically to take a hard look at your processes. Do they solve the right problems? Can they be simplified? The second is that if you cut a job into too many pieces and involve too many people, nobody can see the whole process and the work will bog down. The third, closely related to the second, is that too many hand-offs create too many likely points of failure.”
“Smart companies will combine Internet services and personal contact in programs that give their customers the benefits of both kinds of interaction. You want to move pure transactions to the Internet, use online communication for information sharing and routine communication, and reserve face-to-face interaction for the activities that add the most value.
As I said in The Road Ahead, we always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.
You know you have built an excellent digital nervous system when information flows through your organization as quickly and naturally as thought in a human being and when you can use technology to marshal and coordinate teams of people as quickly as you can focus an individual on an issue. It’s business at the speed of thought.”
If you look at what Microsoft offers today… without a doubt… Bill’s vision will have manifested just in time!
It sparked my imagination and moved me to go work for “Mind The Store” 3 months latter.
Having been involved as a Microsoft Partner since March 2001 I can attest that the tools they provide partners are… amazing!
Look at www.surface.com and www.mappoint.com (use the 3D version and hybrid view)
Sept 2000
On flight back from Las Vegas I read this article
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.09/razorfish.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
2 days latter I doubled my salary… and started using the word recontextualization 🙂