Final conclusion

At the beginning of writing this book, I had no preconceptions as to how it would all come out. I was that businessman in chapter three, who was looking at the waves, waiting for a suitable surfing wave to come along. The problem then was that even if a good wave had come along I probably wouldn't have been able to recognise it, neither would I have known how to ride it - because I hadn't yet learned to surf.

In the course of writing "The Entrepreneurial Web" and this current book I've picked up many useful ideas and learned from the experiences of countless other people - thanks goes to the people in the cafe and the many others from various email discussion forums. I've benefited also from e-zines, newsletters, Web sites and discussion forums - not to mention many face to face discussions and meetings in the real world.

The collected inputs from all the people directly or indirectly involved has produced a book of conceptual ideas. These can be considered to be tools, which can now be included in the toolbox of concepts that the reader uses to establish their own particular niche in the world of e-business. Some of these tools may be redundant, some of them useless, some of them non applicable. But, hopefully, there will be enough useful tools included in this book to justify its purchase.

For me, the most important conclusion I got from putting this book together was that e-business is not simply a matter of creating a product or service and then marketing it to customers or clients. It involves something much more interesting: it is about creating a dynamic system of inter-dependences.

In the world of e-business, products cannot be definitively described, designs, can never be frozen, customers cannot be satiated. E-businesses have to be given an independent life of their own so that they can self adapt to the rapidly changing environment and competition. This is my own most important learning from this book writing exercise: e-business isn't about designing a product or a service. It isn't about technology or marketing. It is about designing an adaptive system.

End of book