Context Winter 2002/2003 Issue -- Table of Contents

What I Learned During the Economic Slump

David Pottruck, co-CEO of Charles Schwab, shares the sometimes painful lessons his company has learned over the past two years.
—a Context Interview

Accor, the French hotel chain, finds spectacular growth online.
—by Richard Evans

Here are the winners of our prestigious 2002 Killer App Awards, as well as the, um, less-than-prestigious Road Kill Award.

Despite all the money and effort poured into them, customer-relationship-management systems often misunderstand or even ignore the customer and do more harm than good—as these three cautionary tales show.
—by Dale Buss

All Together Now
The author argues that major innovations such as the Internet take shape in waves of cooperation—and that it's high time for us to work in unison again.
—by Andy Lippman

The Sky's No Longer the Limit
Why radio spectrum, regulated as a precious, scarce resource, may actually be almost infinite.
—by David Reed

WWW.ord to the Wise
—Paul B. Carroll,
Editor-in-Chief

The Write Stuff
Letters to the Editor.

Off the Cuff

A Narrow Escape
EBay offered to sell itself for a mere $40 million in the mid-1990s, but Times Mirror botched the chance.
—by Adam Cohen

Better Wishes
American Greetings shows how to overcome customers’ resistance to paying for content online.
—by Jim Spira and Josef Mandelbaum

Making the Cut
Although companies have made internal operations far more productive, there is still room to improve efficiency by tightening cooperation with partners.
—by Adam Gutstein

Is It Synergy? Or Just Sin?
Mostly, the latter. Claims that acquisitions of companies will lead to synergy almost never pan out.
—by Paul Carroll