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@BRINT Out of Box Thinking Makes Headlines in Business Week
Pittsburgh, PA, March 10, 1997 -- Many of you would be familiar with the thought-provoking critique and analyses of cutting-edge business and information technology issues that form the regular fare of our Out-of-box Thinking column. In this column, your host critiques the latest industry issues and events that are of strategic relevance to managers and decision-makers of contemporary knowledge intensive organizations.

Recently, the Out-of-box Thinking column critically analyzed the issue of "Webcasting" as it was featured in the February 24, 1997 issue of Business Week. The analysis criticized the underlying notions of cafeteria-style information delivery without giving due attention to the organizational context and also cautioned the managers about handing over their knowledge profiles to third-parties.

A letter based on this analyses made headlines in the Readers Report section of the Business Week issue of March 17, 1997. It was featured on pg. 10 of the printed version of the magazine. The printed version of the letter is reproduced below. The detailed analyses of the story featured in Out-of-box Thinking column is available in the Out-of-box Thinking: Archive.

The following letter made headlines in the Readers Report section of the Business Week issue of March 17, 1997.

Webcasting: A Few Tangles

I read ''Webcasting'' (Special Report, Feb. 24) with great interest. The arrival of webcasting raises a slew of questions: How does one value cafeteria-style information from a provider that scans, filters, and interprets information according to its own priorities and interests? When content is delivered without knowledge of context, is it information or junk? How much should one reveal to get customized information?

We live in a society in which statistics related to our living, eating, and traveling are monitored by marketers trying to customize the delivery of their wares. How comfortable should corporate managers and decision-makers be in handing their personal profiles to third parties?

Yogesh Malhotra
Pittsburgh