The Entrepreneurial Web

Book 1 of the e-business strategy trilogy

Author: Peter Small

Written in five parts (see links on left), this is the draft copy of the book, as it was presented to the reviewers in the virtual cafe during 1999

This book was drafted at the time when the dotCom boom was taking off. It is historically interesting because it describes the thinking and attitudes towards what was then a new and rapidly expanding communication environment - totally different from anything that had gone before. Below is the description of the book as it was described by the publishers on the covers:

First, think like an e-business

The digital world of e-business and e-commerce is expanding at breakneck speed in all directions. It is totally unpredictable, full of unknowns, and unexpected changes. It is a world where all the conventional rules of communicating, cooperating and doing business are radically different. Overwhelming evidence shows that the conventional corporate mind is not yet up to the problem of mastering the world of e-commerce.

Using an ingenious combination of pragmatism, theory and real life examples, Peter Small, explains why conventional business theory is totally inappropriate for the e-business world and offers a radical new alternative strategy for succeeding.

The rapid advance of computers and communications technology is throwing up so many changes that the thinking of yesterday is likely to be irrelevant today. Those with the right mindset and understanding, together with the necessary conceptual tools, can ride this current wave of change successfully. Those able to realize that it is about strategy and communication rather than the technology alone will have a strong competitive edge.

Incomplete knowledge is a fact of life in e-business. No-one can possibly have all the 'essential' knowledge in this unpredictable, changing environment. Game theory strategies allow for such 'knowledge gaps', using a type of thinking that is outside of conventional business models. Solutions cannot be planned or designed in unpredictable competitive environments, they have to be grown from the bottom up. Success isn't about prediction and structural design, it is about being able to cope with the uncertainties and the complexities of this new medium better than others.

The Entrepreneurial Web is about understanding the implications to business and commerce of the Internet and the World Wide Web. It is about imaginative, people-to-people communication strategies that are likely to change all the rules for competing in highly competitive markets. It looks at how ideas should be allowed to evolve and respond to changes in order to succeed - something that many large corporate concerns have ignored to their cost.

The edited version of these drafts for THE ENTREPRENEURIAL WEB was published in 2000 by Pearson Education (FT.COM imprint)
ISBN: 0 273 65036 X