The fly Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most intensively studied organisms in biology and serves as a model system for the investigation of many developmental and cellular processes common to higher eukaryotes, including humans. We have determined the nucleotide sequence of nearly all of the ~120-megabase euchromatic portion of the Drosophila genome using a whole-genome shotgun sequencing strategy supported by extensive clone-based sequence and a high-quality bacterial artificial chromosome physical map. Efforts are under way to close the remaining gaps; however, the sequence is of sufficient accuracy and contiguity to be declared substantially complete and to support an initial analysis of genome structure and preliminary gene annotation and interpretation. The genome encodes ~13,600 genes, somewhat fewer than the smaller Caenorhabditis elegans genome, but with comparable functional diversity.

In an era of exploding information, maintaining one's expertise is a constant challenge. What really distinguishes high performers from the rest of the pack is their ability to maintain and leverage personal networks. Contrary to the popular image of the networker, the building and use of such networks is rarely motivated by explicit political or career-driven motives. By simply getting their work done at a superior level, the most successful knowledge workers develop reputations and networks that bring opportunities and resources to them as needed. As a result, political posturing is of little value. In addition, high performers are much more than "social butterflies," who tend to have numerous relationship that do not scratch below the surface. For the most effective knowledge workers, a network is a two-way street.

There's a grain of value in most new business ideas - and a bushel in some. Business innovation and IT go hand in hand. In this way, new business ideas are the flip side of new technologies. Any technology executive who wants to advance a slate of emerging technologies should become very familiar with ways to foster new business and management ideas. This process was studies for three years in more than 50 organizations, using in-depth interviews to uncover roles and processes for boosting an organization's performance through new ideas. A description of these roles and processes, and the steps managers and vendors should take to make ideas a reality, are presented. Then an outline of some ways IT executives can become idea practitioners are presented - those most likely to put ideas into practice. Ideas are cheap and plentiful, but implementing them is often very difficult.

Analytics involves an enterprise-based approach and broad use of optimization and modeling. It can be applied to many different functions to improve them, including supply chain management, human capital management, pricing, financial performance, and service and product quality; examples are given.

Companies questing for killer apps generally focus all their firepower on the one area that promises to create the greatest competitive advantage. But a new breed of organization has upped the stakes: Amazon, Harrah's, Capital One, and the Boston Red Sox have all dominated their fields by deploying industrial-strength analytics across a wide variety of activities. At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technologies, business processes are among the few remaining points of differentiation - and analytics competitors wring every last drop of value from those processes. In companies that compete on analytics, senior executives make it clear - from the top down - that analytics is central to strategy. Such organizations launch multiple initiatives involving complex data and statistical analysis, and quantitative activity is management at the enterprise (not departmental) level. In this article, the author lays out the characteristics and practices of these statistical masters and describes some of the very substantial changes other companies must undergo in order to compete on quantitative turf.

Automated decision applications are being used to generate useful solutions in different areas of business. Automated decision applications can now help businesses to generate decisions that are more consistent than those made by people, and they can help managers to progress quickly from initial insight to eventual action. Furthermore, such systems can help businesses to reduce labor costs, utilize scarce expertise, improve quality, enforce policies, and respond more swiftly to customers. The reluctance of industry to embrace automated decision systems in the past and the use of such systems by individual industries today are discussed.

Futurists have long anticipated the day when computers would relieve managers and professionals of the need to make certain types of decisions. But for a variety of reasons - including management skepticism and concerns about solution complexity - automated decision making has been slow to materialize. Automated decision making is finally coming of age, the authors argue, and the new generation of applications differs substantially from prior decision-support systems. Today's applications are easier to create and manage than earlier systems. Rather than require people to identify the problems or to initiate the analysis, companies typically embed decision-making capabilities in the normal flow of work. Those systems then sense online data, apply codified knowledge or logic, and make decisions - all with minimal amounts of human intervention. They can help businesses generate decisions that are more consistent than those made by people, and they can help managers move quickly from insight to decision to action. This can help companies reduce labor costs, leverage scarce expertise, improve quality, enforce policies and respond to customers. As automating decisions becomes more feasible, organizations need to think about which decisions have to be made by people and which can be computerized. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

The article explores the emerging quest to standardize business processes, and the effects this will have on management and operations. These effects include changes in business strategy, expectations for improvement, non-competitive shared services, and increased outsourcing.

Despite the much-ballyhooed increase in outsourcing, most companies are in do-it-yourself mode for the bulk of their processes, in large part because there's no way to compare outside organizations' capabilities with those of internal functions. It's not surprising that cost is by far companies' primary criterion for evaluating outsourcers or that many companies are dissatisfied with their outsourcing relationships. A new world is coming and it will lead to dramatic changes in the shape and structure of corporations. A broad set of process standards will soon make it easy to determine whether a business capability can be improved by outsourcing it. The speed with which some businesses have already adopted process standards suggests that many previously unscrutinized areas are ripe for change.

Enterprise systems packages have long been associated with process change. However, it was assumed that most organizations would simultaneously design and implement process change while implementing the systems. A survey of 163 organizations and detailed interviews with 28 more suggests that enterprise systems were still being implemented even among early adopters of the technology, and that process change was being undertaken on an ongoing basis. After the prerequisites of time, critical mass of functionality, and significant expenditures were taken care of, the factors most associated with achieving value from enterprise systems were integration, process optimization, and use of enterprise-systems data in decision making.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Early enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or, more simply, enterprise systems (ES), were not primarily focused on the supply chain. Their initial focus was to execute and integrate such internally-oriented applications that support finance, accounting, manufacturing, order entry, and human resources. Having got their internal operations somewhat integrated, many organizations have moved on to address the supply chain with their ES. The Internet has also brought about a revolution in supply chain thinking. Progress toward complete inter-enterprise integration is measured in years and even decades. In this article, we discuss both the visions firms have for using enterprise systems for supply chain management, and the actual reality of current implementation. We conclude with projections of how enterprise systems will be used for supply chains in the future. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Although business-process reengineering was one of the biggest ideas ever at its peak, reengineering soon became code for downsizing, which was not the original intention. Experts in such areas as continuous improvement, systems analysis, industrial engineering, and cycle-time reduction began claiming an expertise in reengineering, which raised expectations and undoubtedly hastened the concept's demise. Nonetheless, business-process reengineering does have its merits, and it sometimes makes sense for a firm to address broad, cross-functional processes or start from scratch on certain broken processes.

An excerpt from the book What's The Big Idea? by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak is presented. At its height, business-process reengineering was one of the biggest business ideas ever. Reengineering became a money machine for several of its constituents: the gurus who propounded the idea, the consulting firms that offered reengineering services to their clients, and the software vendors who managed to convince firms that their wares were critical to successful reengineering. Unfortunately, the idea did not enrich those who were most responsible for its birth and continued life within organizations: the faithful practitioners. These individuals played their customary heroic roles on the reengineering stage, but others got all the credit.

Virtually every knowledge-based organization wastes time, money, and human energy re-creating intellectual assets. As companies increasingly compete on the basis of knowledge, they must improve their methods for reusing intellectual assets. In this article the prevalence of reuse in several different industries is described, including software, health care, automobiles, and professional services. In each industry, managers in at least two organizations were interviewed about their reuse practices and challenges. Two types of intellectual assets are identified based on their purpose and the context in which they are employed: 1. product assets and 2. process assets. The distinction between product and process underscores the "combinatorial" nature of knowledge in organizations. That is, knowledge about things and knowledge about processes can be combined and recombined, sometimes to improve performance incrementally and sometimes to achieve quantum improvements. The critical task for organizations is to manage intellectual assets across their individual and collective life cycles - from codification to contribution and refinement, through depletion and renewal.

It would actually be quite difficult to come up with a truly revolutionary business idea. Most business ideas are riffs on a few basic themes - innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness, and so forth. Even the virtues of revolution are overrated. Revolutions are necessary when companies have fallen behind their competitors, or when they have gotten very lax in key processes. But the best companies never have to resort to revolution.

Managerial innovation is an increasingly important source of competitive advantage - especially given the speed with which product innovations are copied - but it does not happen automatically. It takes a certain kind of person to welcome new management ideas and usher them into an organization. Recent research studied 100 such people to find out how they translate new ideas into action in the organizations. It was discovered that they are a distinct type of practitioner; that is to say, the resemble their counterparts in other organizations more than they resemble their own colleagues, and they share a common way of working. The study looked at how some companies enable and others hobble their "idea practitioners." Based on the research, 7 pieces of advice are offered: 1. Recognize their existence. 2. Carve out roles for them. 3. Give them license. 4. Reward them...carefully. 5. Get into the idea. 6. Run occasional interference. 7. Create an idea-friendly culture.

Authors of this article share their research into business management. Specifically, the authors discuss the management and executive people who suggest meaningful management ideas that can benefit the company. The authors describe these people as idea practitioners.

Strategy for the Knowledge Economy, by Marius Leibold, Gilbert Probst, and Michael Gilbert Probst, is reviewed.

The authors spent more than a year investigating the mysteries of knowledge-worker performance. In the process, they realized that organizations cannot begin to increase their understanding of what makes knowledge workers effective until they recognize the importance of such workers as a whole and how to differentiate among them as individuals. This article explores 5 key issues that companies are struggling with and then develops a framework to help organizations think more clearly about how to improve the performance of their knowledge workers. The 5 key issues are: 1. The determinants of knowledge-worker performance are becoming clear. How to integrate them remains murky. 2. Many organizations resist the idea that segmentation of knowledge workers is necessary. 3. No one seems to own the problem of knowledge worker performance. 4. Companies are experimenting heavily with workplace redesign, but they are not learning very much. 5. There is great reluctance to alter knowledge work, especially at the high end.

The means by which to ensure the optimum performance of knowledge workers are discussed. Topics covered include the five key issues that companies struggle with in trying to manage knowledge work and a framework to help companies think more clearly about steps that they can take to improve knowledge worker performance.

Partners HealthCare set about to create a database management system for several of Boston's hospitals (including Brigham and Women's Hospital). The system, discussed here, integrates constantly added medical research data for use by doctors.

No matter what the field, many people simply cannot keep up with all they need to know. In the early years of knowledge management, companies established knowledge networks and communities of practice, built knowledge repositories, and attempted to motivate people to share knowledge. But each of these activities involved a great deal of additional labor for knowledge workers. A better approach is to bake specialized knowledge into the jobs of highly skilled workers. Knowledge workers could benefit from a just-in-time knowledge-management system tailored to deliver the right supporting information for the job at hand. Partners HealthCare System's knowledge management initiative is discussed.

According to a survey of 24 firms known for their superior customer knowledge, transaction data alone is not sufficient to gain insight into customer needs. Many of the executives participating in the survey said that their firms succeed because they consider the person behind the transaction. By analyzing this "human" data, they can better understand and forecast customers' behaviors and can depend less on technologies to gather, distribute, and use transaction-driven knowledge. Seven common practices shared by most of these companies--focusing on the most valued customers, prioritizing objectives, aiming for the optimal knowledge mix, avoiding having one repository for all data, thinking creatively about human knowledge, considering the wider context, and establishinga process and tools--are discussed.

This article presents a framework that helps companies utilize data to transform knowledge into business results. Research on data-to-knowledge efforts from over 20 companies reveals the main components of successful knowledge management include strategic planning, recruiting and retaining talented employees, developing a data-oriented organizational culture, and structuring analytic resources.

Knowledge management is the key success factor of today's business leaders. This article focuses on the rise of knowledge management. The author provides a summary of useful concepts, different project types, supportive organizational structures, effective technologies and points out future knowledge management directions. Currently, within knowledge management, attention management has become the most important success factor. In the future, the management of attention is likely to decide which businesses will be among the leaders of the new economy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

A study was conducted to examine the appeal of the "virtual office" to corporations. Data were drawn from a survey of 100 Fortune 500 Industrials and interviews with managers and employees at ten companies where virtual offices had become well established. The results show that several companies have successfully integrated the virtual office into their organizations, with their main motivations being cost reduction, a desire for productivity increases, and reengineered processes. However, although work mobility and flexibility have value, so do the face-to-face encounters that are lost under the new arrangements. To minimize the costs, managers need to adopt radical new approaches to evaluating, educating, organizing, and informing workers.

Argues that, unless information technology managers pay attention to how people share information, advanced technological systems cannot achieve their full potential. Outlines how organizations can rebuild their information cultures, integrating human flexibility and disorder into information systems and changing employee behavior. (JOW)

Part of a special e-business section on manufacturing exchanges. Aggregation and integration are two concepts that explain much of the present and future of e-markets. Aggregation, defined as the opportunity to do business with larger numbers of buyers and sellers, is something that e-markets offer in abundance. However, integration--the ability to communicate easily across organizations and connect the buyer's and seller's business processes--may be appealing but is as yet just a vision. Indeed, despite all the promises, e-markets are merely a continuation of familiar trends, namely supply-chain integration, inventory reduction, and cooperation with competitors and customers.

Part of a special section on rigor and relevance in information systems (IS) research presents a commentary on Izak Benbasat and Robert W. Zmud's "Emprical Research in Information Systems: The Practice of Relevance," which appears in this issue. Benbasat and Zmud are correct in stating that IS research needs to become more relevant, but they have not gone far enough in their analysis of IS research irrelevance and their recommendations for change. Specifically, Benbasat and Zmud's confidence that IS research can be made more relevant without fundamentally challenging core academic values around research rigor, publication outlets and audiences, and the dangers of consulting needs to be replaced by a recognition that far deeper changes in the research enterprise are required. These "deeper" changes require that IS research lead other management fields, support practitioners' outlets, study consultants' methods and improve on them, and produce practical research that is consumable by current students.

In today's economy, attention is the scarce resource. Business leaders simply do not have enough attention to go around in order to absorb and manage the flood of information--and the requests for information--that comes their way on a daily basis. Therefore, business leaders need to help people in their organizations manage attention. The implications that the attention deficit has on corporate strategy and structure are examined in detail.

An excerpt from the writer's Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. The transfer of knowledge in a company setting through personal conversations is being threatened by two factors. First, managers that have been influenced by outdated theories on the nature of work sometimes assume that conversations at the watercooler or in the company cafeteria are a waste of time. The reality is that most of such conversation focuses on work and is therefore a form of work. The second factor impeding knowledge transfer is the move by companies to "virtual offices" in which employees are encouraged to work at home or at a customer site. Although it is true that these arrangements offer such benefits as greater employee flexibility and more time with customers, they also reduce the frequency of informal knowledge transfer.

In a recent study, the amount of innovation coming from external sources was estimated to be, on average, 45% of the total for the companies concerned. For some retail companies that figure was high as 90%, while for discovery-intensive pharmaceutical and chemical organizations it was 30% - still a significant number. Half the executives interviewed asserted that the percentage of innovation form external source would grow over the next 3 years not one said it would decline. The need to innovate with outsiders has led companies to tap various external sources, for user communities to competitors. Given the availability of new types of innovation sources, executives are expanding the purposes for which that consider external source appropriate. Whole all of these changes sound good and are benefiting a great many companies, they also add a new layer of complexity to the manger's tasks. And unfortunately, despite the growing acceptance of external innovation, it has been found that many companies lack a sourcing strategy to guide them in managing it. They often take an ad hoc approach that produces uneven results.

The high degree of similarity between the mouse and human genomes is demonstrated through analysis of the sequence of mouse chromosome 16 (Mmu 16), which was obtained as part of a whole-genome shotgun assembly of the mouse genome. The mouse genome is about 10% smaller than the human genome, owing to a lower repetitive DNA content. Comparison of the structure and protein-coding potential of Mmu 16 with that of the homologous segments of the human genome identifies regions of conserved synteny with human chromosomes (Hsa) 3, 8, 12, 16, 21, and 22. Gene content and order are highly conserved between Mmu 16 and the syntenic blocks of the human genome. Of the 731 predicted genes on Mmu 16, 509 align with orthologs on the corresponding portions of the human genome, 44 are likely paralogous to these genes, and 164 genes have homologs elsewhere in the human genome; there are 14 genes for which we could find no human counterpart.

It's not always obvious where management ideas come from. The recent book, What's the Big Idea?, sought to make plain how these ideas originate and make their way through organizations and how "idea practitioners" can better judge and apply them. In the course of that work, the researchers set out to identify the most influential living management thinkers and business intellectuals - the "gurus" who develop, package, and often broadcast breakthrough business ideas. As the research progressed, several gurus suggested that it might be equally interesting to report on those who had most influenced them - to create a "gurus gurus" list. Peter Drucker is highly influential in the public eye and among gurus; he was fourth on the original gurus list, and heads the gurus' gurus list. James March, a Stanford-based social scientist, however, is much more a gurus' guru than a guru to the general public. He finished second on the gurus' guru list and 48th on the original list.

The article examines the various sources that dominate management literature and mass media. They reflect a wide range of intellectual specialties, including anthropology, history, psychology, and others. Implications of this diversity on management science and practice are briefly noted.

Business intelligence (BI) and knowledge management (KM) have had little to do with each other in the past. Business intelligence incorporates such previous concepts as decision support, executive information systems, data warehousing, and data mining -- but not knowledge management. Knowledge management, on the other hand, focuses on the capture, sharing and distribution of unstructured textual and graphic information -- as opposed to the structured, quantitative orientation of business intelligence. Despite their historical differences, there are a variety of attributes that these two movements have in common, and strong logic behind a more combined approach. Perhaps the strongest argument for a common BI/KM approach is that the user often does not care about the distinction between them. The Intel TMG environment is clearly one in which the customer or user is provided with BI and KM in an integrated fashion. It is an excellent illustration of the productivity and performance benefits that result from integrating these two formerly separate approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the rationale, features, development and application of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) over the past ten years, to provide a critical review of its key problematic effects, and to suggest a future direction. The shift from the industrial to the innovation economy provides a background to identifying five major problem areas of the BSC which are then discussed with reference to selected case examples. An alternative systemic scorecard is then proposed. The tyranny of the BSC as a measurement "straightjacket" is beginning to jeopardize the survival of firms, hinders much-needed business ecosystem innovation, thereby negatively affecting customer value rejuvenation, shareholders' benefits, other stakeholders as well as societal benefits in general. A more systemic alternative is proposed.

Knowledge-sharing systems have been implemented in various global companies during the last few years. However, many of them have failed because they were limited to technical solutions and did not consider the organizational and cross-cultural factors that are necessary to make a knowledge-sharing platform successful. We identified Siemens - a major player in the electronic industry - as a benchmark company in the global transfer of management knowledge. Based on in-depth interviews with executives within Siemens, we describe the five steps with which Siemens successfully established its global knowledge-sharing system "ShareNet." The examination of Siemens' strategies for coping with the organizational and cross-cultural challenges that arose in each phase should be instructive to other organizations using or aiming to create a global knowledge-sharing system. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

The five strategic steps adopted by electronic giant, Siemens for successfully implementing a knowledge-sharing system are discussed. The measures encompass Siemens operations all over the globe. These steps overcome the constraints of organizational and cross-cultural factors in transferring management knowledge.

Enterprise systems, commercial software packages, promise the integration of all information including a company's financial and account information, customer information, and human resource data. Germany's SAP, the largest vendor, had sales that grew from $500 mil in 1992 to $3.3 bil in 1997, and is the fastest-growing software company worldwide.