Future Arrived Yesterday, The

The fate of newspapers and the music industry is a harbinger of what awaits every company: a business model in its death throes as people finally wake up to the grim fact that their products and the way they deliver them are completely out of sync not only with what customers want but how they want it. But the author who enabled his readers to see clearly the opportunities of the then-emerging digital age (when the Internet was still the domain of technical experts) is back, once again making sense of a future just around the corner. Factors such as the wireless worldwide Web, billions of new consumers, and an entrepreneurial ethos are all converging. How a business is organized and how people will be managed and employed will change more quickly than anyone realizes. Michael Malone shows not only why adaptation is necessary but how to do it. First, he shows that in our Web 2.0 world - "the future arrived yesterday" - the tools for success already exist. And, they are the means for companies to become "protean" - able to be shape-shifters, quickly changing structure and business models to meet rapidly evolving market changes and business opportunities. We are on the cusp of an exciting new economic era. Michael Malone’s book is both a provocative think piece and a pragmatic operations manual for understanding the opportunities and then doing something about them. As with The Virtual Corporation, it is, as Yogi Berra once said, "déjà vu all over again."