Books

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A Journey Through the Systems Landscape

Systems are everywhere and affect us daily in our private and professional lives. We all use the word system to describe something that is essential but often abstract, complex and even mysterious. However, learning to utilize system concepts as first class objects as well as methodologies for systems thinking and systems engineering provides a basis for removing the mystery and moving towards mastery even for complex systems. This journey through the Systems Landscape has been developed to promote learning to think and act in terms of systems. A unique aspect is the introduction of concrete system semantics provided as a “system survival kit” and based upon a limited number of concepts and principles as well as a mental model called the system-coupling diagram. This discipline independent presentation assists individuals and is essential for building a learning organization that can utilize a systems approach to achieving its enterprise goals. The eight chapters are presented as stops along a journey that successively build system knowledge. Each chapter terminates with a Knowledge Verification section that provides questions and exercises for individuals and groups. Case studies reflecting the utilization of the system related concepts, principles and methodologies are provided as chapter interludes.

Value Driven Enterprise Architecture

This book will provide IS architects with an easy pragmatic (non academic) way to deliver proven ROI, lower risks and a faster time to market in Enterprise Architecture. The chapters will concentrate on the motivations of enterprises, the pragmatic reuse of the existing assets, the implementation of a standard process in architecture and the description and implementation suggestions on some standard business processes This book will not assume that you familiar with any frameworks or theories on Enterprise Architecture.

Sustainable Enterprise Architecture

Intended for anyone charged with coordinating enterprise architectural design in a small, medium, or large organization, Sustainable Enterprise Architecture helps you explore the various elements of your own particular network environment to develop strategies for mid- to long-term management and sustainable growth. Organized much like a book on structural architecture, this one starts with a solid foundation of frameworks and general guidelines for enterprise governance and design. The book covers common considerations for all enterprises, and then drills down to specific types of technology that may be found in your enterprise. It explores strategies for protecting enterprise resources and examines technologies and strategies that are only just beginning to take place in the modern enterprise network.

The Power of Pull

Exploring the paradigm shift in business brought about by innovations in communication technology, this collaboration from three consultant-authors provides a succinct metaphor for the shift in the information economy-from “push” to “pull”-but little else. Though they provide an effective survey of the effect of more interactive, ubiquitous and on-demand communication, it already feels dated; the essential messages that Hagel, Brown, and Davison derive-networking is key, you should pursue your passions, many traditional ways of doing business are over-are old news in the business self-help section. The examples they provide focus primarily on individually-driven collaborative efforts (wikis, online gaming) and make poor analogies for someone looking to revitalize a corporation or present a compelling case for change to colleagues or an intransigent CEO. Professionals who already know that the Internet isn’t just a phase will need more information than this book provides.

The Social Life of Information

The gap between the hype of the Information Age and its reality is often wide and deep, and it’s into this gap that John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid plunge. Not that these guys are Luddites–far from it. Brown, the chief scientist at Xerox and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Duguid, a historian and social theorist who also works with PARC, measure how information technology interacts and meshes with the social fabric. They write, “Technology design often takes aim at the surface of life. There it undoubtedly scores lots of worthwhile hits. But such successes can make designers blind to the difficulty of more serious challenges–primarily the resourcefulness that helps embed certain ways of doing things deep in our lives.” The authors cast their gaze on the many trends and ideas proffered by infoenthusiasts over the years, such as software agents, “still a long way from the predicted insertion into the woof and warp of ordinary life”; the electronic cottage that Alvin Toffler wrote about 20 years ago and has yet to be fully realized; and the rise of knowledge management and the challenges it faces trying to manage how people actually work and learn in the workplace. Their aim is not to pass judgment but to help remedy the tunnel vision that prevents technologists from seeing larger the social context that their ideas must ultimately inhabit.

Greening IT

Information Technology is responsible for approximately 2% of the world’s emission of greenhouse gases. The IT sector itself contributes to these greenhouse gas emissions, through its massive consumption of energy – and therefore continuously exacerbates the problem. At the same time, however, the IT industry can provide the technological solutions we need to optimise resource use, save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We call this Greening IT. This book looks into the great potential of greening society with IT – i.e. the potential of IT in transforming our societies into Low-Carbon societies. The book is the result of an internationally collaborative effort by a number of opinion leaders in the field of Greening IT.