Excellent guidebook for succeeding in the online world, including social networking
The Virtual Handshake is an immensely valuable book, both as a handbook to the virtual world for the business-oriented person and as a guide to purposeful networking. I was compelled to get it after seeing David Teten speak at a conference because he spoke with authority while explaining new things clearly. Allen and Teten have done a masterful job at writing an interesting book that is full of useful information. Moreover, they succeed at providing a conceptual framework, so the reader can make use of the information. It is also a fun read.
As a marketing executive and a management consultant (strategy) since the early 1990s, I have helped to build parts of the virtual world the authors describe. I am very familiar with the topics, and I found the book useful on two key levels:
Conceptual: The virtual world is difficult to understand conceptually because it is boundaryless and serendipitous, and the authors describe what it is enough so you can get to the point: how to interact with it to accomplish what you want. This is extremely important […]

(**Updated) Marketing Outlays Sabotaged by Sub-par Process Execution
The Knowledge Economy is a post-industrial economy characterized by a highly developed information technology industry along with overproduction and commoditization in industrial and agricultural sectors. Widespread information technology (IT) adoption among producers and consumers enables all market participants to create and share information about all aspects of economic transactions. The creation, packaging and sharing of information is termed “knowledge.” In the Knowledge Economy, information about an underlying good creates most of the good’s differentiated value.
Three eminent diplomatic leaders and CEOs from Baxter, Financial Dynamics, ITW and Philips briefed Midwest executives on the current status and future directions of the world’s largest trading relationship at the Executives’ Club of Chicago’s International Conference November 15. The half-day program featured several presentations, a CEO panel and a media round table. All speakers sought to impress upon the audience the pivotal importance of the transatlantic alliance for the United States and Europe, and most warned chief executives neither to take it for granted nor to be passive in the face of rising protectionism.