Larry Downes and Chunka Mui: Unleashing the Killer App
Economics Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase observed in the 1930s that that organizations were growing in size and, thus, becoming more bureaucratic, all because there was too much friction in externally acquiring the services and products necessary to the provision of an organization's core products and/or services. Downes and Mui make a persuasive case that the Internet changes that internally focused paradigm by removing the friction from external sourcing, thus enabling new "leaner, meaner" operational models in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Downes' and Mui's "killer app" is Thomas Friedman's set of "flattenting" forces. (*****)
Steven D. Levitt: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Levitt asks interesting questions and uses statistical regression and his impressive habits of mind to answer them. I'd like to know what he might find if he asked why nonprofit higher education has not improved productivity in light of its major investments in information technology. (****)
Michael Treacy: The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market
Read this and then determine your institution's current "value discipline" -- and what it actually should be. Be honest! (*****)
Thomas L. Friedman: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
This is must reading! Ask yourself how you would "flatten" higher education -- and your institution! (*****)
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