Author of bestseller to lecture at Owen on e-business

Larry Downes, a best-selling author, consultant and speaker on the impact of digital technologies on business strategy, will speak on e-business at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management Sept. 22, from 10 a.m. to noon in Averbuch Auditorium at Management Hall.

"It wasn't until the Internet got into the hands of entrepreneurs and consumers that its potential began to be realized."

--Larry Downes Author,
speaker at Owen Sept. 22

Titled "E-Business: What I'm Learning During the Revolution," his address is sponsored by the Electronic Commerce Research Laboratory (e-Lab) and the E-Commerce Club at Owen. The event is free and open to the public.

Downes is co-author of Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Technologies for Market Dominance, which made several bestseller lists. Killer applications, or apps, are ones that transform industries, unseat market leaders and, in the venture capital world, provide a thousandfold return on an initial investment.

The spreadsheet and the 800-number are just a couple of examples of "killer apps." FedEx, e-mail, the Internet, the World Wide Web and electronic commerce are examples of other killer apps that are transforming business, according to Downes.

"Technology is transforming almost every industry faster than companies in those industries can respond," Downes said. "This lag between what's possible and how long it takes companies to respond creates the opening for killer apps. It wasn't until the Internet got into the hands of entrepreneurs and consumers that its potential began to be realized. Often it takes someone free of existing assumptions to recognize and exploit a killer app."

Downes is a senior lecturer at Northwestern University, where he teaches technology, strategy and law. He is also a fellow with Diamond Technology Partners and its Diamond Exchange, an interdisciplinary roundtable for senior executives working to develop digital strategy. He is also a columnist for The Industry Standard, a weekly magazine about the Internet that targets business leaders.