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Rating: 
Summary: Not bad ...
Review: This book is one of a number that came out in the last couple of years that purport to provide the reader with a view of the present and future of CI. This one's title gives away its origins as a Y2K written text. Like a number of other recent CI offerings that I've read (my mind comes to Prescott's & SCIP's "Proven strategies" and Fleisher & Blenkorn's book "CI Frontiers"), this is an edited collection, with some chapters offering more value and insight than others.I particularly liked the chapters by Hohhof on IT as well as the one by Nolan & Quinn on CI and security. Both of these tackled tough subjects in a compact space of one chapter and did so with flair and ingenuity. There were a couple of chapters I thought were far less valuable, particularly the opening and closing chapters by the editor, and the piece on ethics which was basically a culling together of material I know I have previously seen published somewhere by SCIP in either its magazine or review texts. The opening chapter was a basic rehash of items that have been covered thoroughly elsewhere and essentially adds little to any new understanding of the field. The last chapter had much promise in that it ostensibly provided something badly needed in this field, that being case studies. Unfortunately, these "case studies" were little more than short blurbs about incidents that looked like they were drawn out of the daily newspaper. They didn't help me understand how CI (or any other) practices made a difference in these situations, and considering their length, left me with far more questions and concerns than answers. I would hope that the editor would try and provide more in-depth studies in future volumes should he choose to write one because they truly are needed and this effort left much to be desired.
Although he doesn't state this in the preface, my guess is that the editor Miller likely put this effort together to teach introductory post-secondary courses in the subject area. As such, he has to put together 12-13 chapters to cover each week of the subject, necessarily giving enough information on each to stimulate discussion but not enough to give the depth of coverage offered in other books (see my reviews of Ashton & Klavan's STI book, Fleisher & Blenkorn or Fahey's Competitors for books with greater depth than this one) or the breadth of coverage offered in the Prescott & SCIP's "proven strategies" offering. All in all, this is a cute effort that comes up short against some of the other books currently available in the field. Fortunately, I bought the paperback and thought it was just worth the over [money] I had to pay in my home currency. Had it been done only in hard cover, I would likely have preferred to have bought one of the many used copies at more reasonable prices available at Amazon.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and varied
Review: This is an interesting book that covers a lot of territory in the CI area. Several of the pieces are particularly good - I liked the ones by Kassler and Sandman in particular since they easily dealt with difficult topics. I'm not sure how best to describe the book in terms of its ideal reader but I would guess that most people relatively new to the CI field would find it of some value. More experienced consultants would likely find it too elementary to suit their needs. It is also not a 'how to' book but is rather descriptive - not a problem but also not designed for practitioners.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is one of the best books I've read on the subject. Everyone who is involved in any type of business research or competitor research can benefit from this book. It even includes detailed descriptions of some of the best business information resources available, on- and offline.
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