After reading The Strategy Machine, continue your research with more detailed looks at some of the companies and ideas described in the book.  Here is partial list of interesting research sources, arranged by chapter.

TheMan.com – The bigger they are, the harder they fall
Pixelon – Read Dan Goodin’s full story on one of the worst frauds of the dot com boom

Net Impact - A Study by Hal Varian et. al. – A recent study makes clear that the revolution is far from over
Quotation database – For those looking for their own chapter epigrams

The best resources on the Web for more parallels between the Industrial and Information Revolutions:

The Third Industrial Revolution by Jeremy Underwood
Encyclopedia.com- The Suez Canal
History of Andrew Carnegie
The Victorian Web
Internet Modern History Sourcebook - The Industrial Revolution
Encarta - The Enlightenment
Encarta - The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution facts
Britannica - The Suez Canal

The Univac – The start of the Information Revolution
Alien Technology – A leading manufacturer of disposable computers
Sony's Emotion Engine Technical Details – The facts behind the numbers
MIT Auto-ID Center – A major center of research on disposable computing
GDP Translations – Figuring the cost of 22 million Univacs
MIT Media Lab Digital Life Project – The future of everything

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka – The original text
Cisco Online – The master of the efficiency stage
DiCarta – The impact on the supply chain
Exchanges for Everything – A thousand flowers bloomed at the exchange stage
Napster – The poster child for the chaos of the emergence stage
Cendant – Taking advantage of fragmentation
Wal-Mart – Organizing buyers into a cartel
Swift – Financial services is already an information industry
Transora – A consortium exchange for packaged goods suppliers and buyers
MetalSite Global Metals Marketplace – Fragmentation generates exchanges

A case study:  metamorphosis in the retail automobile business – the odd and transient alliances, the resistance of the dealers:

CarsDirect
JD Power - Internet Car Buying Facts
Autobytel
MSN Carpoint
National Automobile Dealers Association

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TV Guide Online – The original ISC
ISNIE – More on Coasean economics, and further developments
Ariba – Struggling to build links in the ISC for buyers and sellers
Commerce One – Another ISC startup
ECredit.com – A startup finding its place in an emerging ISC
MedUnite – A consortium effort to build an ISC for the health care industry
The McGraw-Hill Companies – A collection of companies with one thing in common:  they are all information companies

In nearly every industry, partial ISCs exist, often the source of superior profits for companies not otherwise involved in the supply chain.  Consider these examples and ask yourself which companies play a similar role in your industry:

Morningstar – Information about mutual funds
Dun & Bradstreet – Information about companies
Standard & Poor’s – Information about traded financial instruments
A.C. Nielsen – Information about consumer behavior
Moody’s – Information about credit worthiness
Reuters – Information about financial news
Platts – A trade publication becomes the market maker in energy
Associated Press – Information about world events

Eastman Chemical Company – Eastman.com, demonstrating the many fruitful investments in the company’s portfolio
Black-Scholes Model – Prof. Kevin Rubash explains the origin of the options pricing model
Cendian Chemical Logistics – Eastman’s first exchange stage joint venture
Reflect.com – Finding a big idea from a field trip
Nokia Venture Partners – Another approach to corporate venture capital at the emergence stage

Dow Jones Index – Products based on superior market intelligence
Coca-Cola – Merchandising the brand
Harvey Entertainment Group – Allowing invisible capital to waste
FASB Statement 142 - Amortizing Intangibles – Recent changes that still don’t solve the problem
Disney's 1996 Annual Report – Follow the footnote for the ABC purchase
Marriott – Try to sort out the brands
LRN - The Legal Knowledge Company – Cracking the code of legal services delivery, very gently
Charles Schwab – Cutting cost by giving customers tools rather than digested data
UBS PaineWebber – What happened to Union Bank of Switzerland?
UPS – Leveraging logistics expertise
Zagat’s Guides – Making money on information float
Boeing – Turning products into services
Turbo Tax – Leveraging expertise across the value curve
PayPal – Information float for non-merchant auctioneers

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Redheffer's Perpetual Motion Machine – One of the great perpetual motion hoaxes
724 Solutions – A provider of the “deconstructed web”
Bluetooth – The high-end, corporate-sponsored wireless standard
WiFi – The low-end, populist alternative to Bluetooth
BP – The ever-amazing oil company and its constant transformation

Technical Architecture

Microsoft .NET – The new computing paradigm and an important framework
Business Objects – The leader in business intelligence
Informatica – Data extraction and analytics
FairMarket, Inc. – Decentralized exchanges
Trade Dynamics Corporation – Forward-thinking thoughts on the future of exchange architectures
IBM - eBusiness on Demand – An emergence architecture for computing infrastructure

Organization Architecture

Eastman Ventures – Eastman’s emergence stage organization and its portfolio
National Venture Capital Assn – One of many important trade associations for emergence stage investors
The Venture Imperative – A valuable new book on corporate venturing, with helpful research tools

On Death & Dying – More on the author, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – The Internet Modern History Sourcebook on Thomas Kuhn
The Mythical Man-Month – Dr. Dobb’s on the 20^th anniversary of Frederick Brook’s great book

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Channel Conflict

BestBuy.com – Buy on-line, pick-up locally
Ethanallen.com – Sharing revenues with stores to ease the conflict
InsWeb Insurance Online – The problems of a backward industry:  insurance
Homestore.com – The problems of a cartelized industry:  real estate
Quixtar – The struggles of a multi-tiered marketer:  Amway
Whirlpool – Avoiding channel conflict with distributors at the cost of a strategy

Law and Regulation

HIPAA Regulations – Forcing an ISC on the health care supply chain
Stamps.com – Held back, in part, by patent claims of Pitney-Bowes
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act – One of the worst pieces of technology-related regulation ever

Financing

Accel Partners – The Venture Capital firm of choice for traditional businesses in sudden metamorphosis
EMac Digital – McDonald’s efforts to outsource the emergence stage

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