enterprises that offer general lessons to other organizations.Sincethe goal of a digital nervous system is to stimulate a concertedresponse by employees to develop and implement a business strategy, youwill see repeatedly that a tight digital feedback loop enables acompany to adapt quickly and constantly to change.This is afundamental benefit to a company embracing the Web w9rkstyle.Business @ the Speed of Thought is not a technical book.It explainsthe business reasons for and practical uses of digital processes thatsolve real business problems.One CEO who'read a late draft of themanuscript said the examples served as a template for helping himunderstand how to use a digital nervous system at his company.He waskind enough to say, "I was making one list of comments to give to you,and another list of things to take back to implement in my company."Ihope other business readers discover the same "how to" value.For themore technically inclined, a companion Web site atprovides more background information on some ofthe examples, techniques for evaluating the capabilities of existinginformation systems, and an architectural approach and developmentmethodologies for building a digital nervous system.The book sitealso has links to other Web sites I reference along the way.To make digital information flow an intrinsic part of ny, here aretwelve key steps: your compaFor knowledge work:1. Insist that communication flow through the organi all so that youcan act on news with ration over em reflexlike speed.2. Study sales data online to find patterns and share insightseasily.Understand overall trends and per sonalize service for individualcustomers.3. Use PCs for business analysis, and shift knowledge workers intohigh-level thinking work about prod ucts, services, andprofitability.4. Use digital tools to create cross-departmental vir tual teams thatcan share knowledge and build on each other's ideas in real time,worldwide.Use dig ital systems to capture corporate history for use(10 of 392)12/28/2005 5:28:51 PM