The Art of Success

Computerworld - The ePolicy Handbook: Designing and Implementing Effective E-Mail, Internet and Software Policies, by Nancy L. Flynn (Amacom Books, 261 pages, $19.95). If you see potential problems from your company's use of e-mail and software, you may want this book as a handy desk reference. Flynn, who conducts seminars and workshops on Internet etiquette and electronic writing, doesn't just dispense advice, she also offers examples of drafting IT-related usage policies. If your company hasn't yet established a policy on electronic communications, concentrate on Chapter 2, which offers a sample questionnaire that can be used to gauge how everyone in the company uses IT. Also, read the 10 tips for enhanced computer security in Chapter 5.
- Rick Saia

Evolve! Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Harvard Business School Press, 321 pages, $27.50). Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor, addresses how the Internet will affect tomorrow's business world, especially generational change and intercompany collaboration. The main take-away is in Chapter 5, where she offers five lessons from her experiences in collaborative commerce. In short, she says, build trust with your partners, build resources (or what she calls "collabronauts"), embed your business in those of your partners, exercise diplomacy to handle the partnership politics and remove internal barriers to collaboration. Kanter also advises companies on how to hire the talent to accomplish their goals, buttressing her comments with survey data on what today's workers want.
- Rick Saia

E-Leadership: Proven Techniques for Creating an Environment of Speed and Flexibility in the Digital Economy, by Susan Annunzio and Julie Liesse (The Free Press, 232 pages, $25). Details how leaders at Old Economy companies can transform their companies to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
- Kevin Fogarty
Cisco Unauthorized: Inside the High-Stakes Race to Own the Future, by Jeffrey S. Young (Prima Communications Inc., 299 pages, $27.50). The author calls San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc. - one of the most successful companies of the Internet age - a "hollow corporation" whose relentless practice of acquisitions and outsourcing have left it a top sales company with no technological center.
Young presents Cisco CEO John Chambers as the Zen master whose focus is the good of the Internet. He portrays the company as simply the best of those that strived to ride the growth of the Internet.
The question Young leaves unanswered is whether Cisco can turn around its latest set of financial challenges and continue to acquire or outpace the start-ups that it fears.
- Kevin Fogarty
Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World,