ZDNet Reviews “Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business”

“Even if you don’t agree with its ambitious theory about what makes businesses successful in the internet age, this book is full of interesting insights and useful advice,” writes ZDNet. Excerpts from the review of “Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business” authored by Cognizant’s Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, and Ben Pring: 

“‘Halo’ is a similar metaphor [to a ‘digital footprint’], but the authors pick ‘code’ to go with it…because they believe that decoding that halo of data, opinions and connections will give businesses that get it right a huge advantage. It’s an ambitious thesis. Amazon displacing Borders wasn’t about books, Netflix killing Blockbuster wasn’t about renting movies, and Apple pushing BlackBerry out of the smartphone market wasn’t about phones at all. Instead, it was companies changing business models by creating and managing code halos — in other words, getting more value from the field of information around a person or product or place than from the actual entity itself.

“Wrapping widgets with digits” is the catchy phrase to explain why an established brand — with customers, extensive distribution, management experience, R&D labs and all the other business advantages you can think of — gets steamrollered by something new. The answer has to be more than getting social networking, cloud computing and mobile device strategies right, or using analytics well — even though these are key components. For the authors of Code Halos, it’s about making customized, individual experiences for customers, and making a business out of that.

Much of the book seeks to take the principles of big-data-driven consumer services like Facebook and Netflix and suggest ways that ordinary businesses can apply them, with frequent references to the way the Internet of Things (IoT) will supply everyone with big data. What’s most likely to be useful is the five-stage Crossroads Model that goes from the ‘ionization’ stage (when your business needs to recognize that lightning is building up and disruption is likely), though the ‘spark’ of opportunity that’s required to start a big enough fire to reach the ‘enrichment’ stage, where big data flips you beyond the ‘crossroads’ to where the personalized code-halo-driven ‘rush’ creates more market relevance and value.

You don’t have to be completely convinced by the underlying theory to find the second half of the book extremely useful…The advice for taking advantage of code halos applies even if you think Amazon's ability in logistics is as important as its recommendation algorithms, or that Facebook succeeds because of network effects rather than the way it filters your news feed based on big data.

Crucially, there’s a good section on the steps you can follow to change attitudes and processes in a company, and how to create, implement and measure strategies for customer experience, big data and the other trends the authors include in the code halo idea. This looks clearly and calmly at the issues that are going to arise as companies start mining the data generated by our increasingly digital lives, and suggests some customer-friendly strategies for spotting the creepy line before you cross it.

If you’re finding the changing nature of work more of a problem than an opportunity, there’s some useful advice on how to decide whether the problem is with you or your company…Code Halos is a practical guide to bringing your business into the 21st century.”

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