Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The focus of this book is real-time, a world of instant gratification and infinite opportunity. It provides specific examples and ideas from companies that are testing the boundaries of time and space, and includes company web site addresses.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments (p. viii)
• Introduction: The Collapse of Time and Space (p. xiv)
• Keeping Real Time, real time (p. 13)
• 1 Bits and Bytes in Perpetual Motion (p. 14)
• 2 The Never Satisfied Customer (p. 36)
• 3 What Is the Message When the Medium Is Everywhere? (p. 58)
• 4 A Brand New Brand (p. 84)
• 5 The Real Time Corporation (p. 106)
• 6 Continuous Discontinuous Change (p. 132)
• 7 Preparing for the Eventuality of Anything (p. 154)
• Epilogue (p. 170)
• Appendix: Web Sites (p. 177)
• Notes (p. 183)
• Index (p. 189)
• About the Author (p. 203)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

McKenna, chairman of the Palo Alto, Calif., marketing and management firm that bears his name, presents a convincing theory that today's rapidly changing technology means that all companies must rethink their entire approach to their customers and clients. "Real time," says McKenna, "occurs when time and distance vanish, when action and response are simultaneous." For example, a consumer inserts a card into an ATM machine and draws money from an account across the world; someone else orders a book via the Web and receives confirmation in seconds. As technological advancements continue, people will become increasingly impatient if they're not given a wide array of almost instantaneous options. Says McKenna, "real time management... calls for the intimate and immediate interconnection of marketing, production development, engineering, and manufacturing‘in fact, of every sphere of an organization's activity." Not only should corporations listen to their customer's needs and desires, the internal communication within corporations should be redesigned so that everyone focuses on that end goal. McKenna cites examples of companies that have already adapted: FedEx allows customers to track packages on line; Microsoft managers are required to listen to and try to incorporate customer comments into new products. McKenna (Who Is Afraid of Big Blue?) has written a manifesto for marketers, customer-service employees and managers in general. In an accessible and convincing manner, he explains why‘and shows how‘corporations must use these technological advancements to compete in today's marketplace. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

This wonderful book is written by a highly regarded author in the field of marketing. All too often marketing books fail to offer broad enough coverage of the wider range of environmental issues that impact the real world application of marketing. Covering the impact of technology on the field of marketing, McKenna has produced a lively book that updates marketing for the coming century. The premise of the book is how to prepare for the "never satisfied customer." McKenna's point appears to be that with the new age of technology, customers never seem to get their product quick enough--they want the product right here, right now, tailored the way they want it. Customers are in the position to demand absolute satisfaction from supplier organizations. The author utilizes the Internet as the prime example of instant gratification for customers. He includes Internet addresses for almost every example discussing customer satisfaction. They can purchase products online from home, and at any time they choose to shop. Customers can e-mail positive and negative experiences with ease. Companies will learn to schmooze with customers online in interactions not possible before the widespread use of the Internet. This volume will stimulate readers to think about how technology and marketing can be used together to create satisfied customers. Appropriate for undergraduate and graduate business and technology collections. D. C. Kimball; Elms College

Booklist Review

McKenna is equally at home in the worlds of high-powered marketing and high technology. He has used CD-ROM technology to help train marketing managers, he was one of the first to see the market potential for new products being launched from Silicon Valley when companies like Intel and Apple were in their infancies, and he never travels without an array of personal electronic gadgetry. Mc-Kenna emphasizes that technology has given companies the capability to continuously monitor what it is customers want and need and to determine whether or not they are satisfied. Much of what he recommends is suggested by such already frequently bandied phrases as "the virtual corporation" and "continuous improvement," but he does go one up on Peter Senge's "learning organization" by calling on managers to create a "sensing organization that constantly monitors, feeds, queries, verifies, tries, and initiates." Although McKenna is not as widely known as other marketing gurus, he is well respected, and his unique observations on the state of technology, marketing, and customer service could make this book a standard. --David Rouse

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Regis McKenna is the chairman of The McKenna Group in Palo Alto, California.