Part 3

An auteur's thinking process

At this mid point in the book, I realised time was running short if I was to create a business before the book was published. Also, the readers of the chapters in the virtual cafe were getting impatient because I hadn't told them what kind of business I was going to set up.

The fact was, that at this stage of the book, I had no idea as to what the business was likely to be. All I had was a number of potentially useful contacts and a range of conceptual models that were waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Not surprisingly, it looked all the world like the previous chapters were nothing more than the fanciful speculations of an academic dreamer.

However, as has been pointed out in previous chapters, ideas and opportunities are of little value unless they can be acted upon. This needs an infra structure in place before not after the decision to create a business is made. Creating this infrastructure may take months, even years, but, once in place, opportunities can be seized upon and put into action immediately.

In almost all books dealing with the creation of a business, this period of building a suitable infrastructure is never fully covered. Probably, the reason for this is that it is a very nebulous area that is highly dependent upon the nature of the business and the personality of the auteur.

These next two chapters, seven and eight, are an attempt to throw some light on this enigmatic, infrastructure building process Ñ which is so necessary before an auteur can be in a position to take positive action.

Be warned though, the thinking processes described are personal to the author and are specifically applicable to dealing with the highly volatile environment of e-business. Also, it must be taken into account that this is the rationalisation of a thinking process, which may be somewhat different from the actual thinking process itself. However, the reader may gain some little little insight into the mysterious circumstances from which many businesses emerge.