Dr. John Sviokla

Research

Articles, papers and case studies

134 pieces from 1986 to 2024, from early expert-systems research at Harvard to today. For current work, see my Forbes columns.

Harvard Business Review

August 2024How One Major Healthcare Firm Became the Leader in Innovative AI Use
July 2024The 6 Disciplines Companies Need to Get the Most Out of Gen AI
February 2024Your Organization Isn't Designed to Work with GenAI
September 2023Where Should Your Company Start with GenAI?
July 20187 Skills That Aren't About to Be Automated
August 2015The Branding Logic Behind Google’s Creation of Alphabet
August 2012Why Life Science Needs it Own Silicon Valley
June 2010How Barcodes and Smartphones Will Rearchitect Information
June 2010Three Tips for Curating Your Audience
May 2010How Coke and Pepsi are Using Social Media to Build their Trust Banks
May 2010Create Choosing (Not Shopping) Experiences
April 2010Changing Health and Wealth Behaviors with Analytics
April 2010Do Your Knowledge Workers Have a Bitsmith?
April 2010How the iPad Is Like the Tesla Roadster
March 2010Real-Time Brand Management - Lessons from Virgin America's Hellish Flight
March 2010Are You Catering to Your Customer's Anxieties?
March 2010How Behavioral Economics Can Help Cure the Health Care Crisis
February 2010Knowledge and the Need for Speed
February 2010Continuous Brand Management for Generation 10:45
January 2010Is This Innovation Too Disruptive for my Firm?
January 2010Five Keys to Creating an Information Advantage
December 2009Better Customer Service through Transparency, Tribes, and Talent
December 2009Swimming in Data? Three Benefits of Visualization
November 2009Getting Buy-In for Abstract Ideas
October 2009How Will Augmented Reality Affect Your Business?
October 2009Getting Started with Disruptive Business Design
September 2009Why the CIO Needs to be a Duck-Billed Platypus
September 2009Can You Design an Internal Netflix Prize?
September 2009Intuit, Mint, and the Power of Simplicity
September 2009Groupon's Four Keys to Customer Interaction
September 2009Skype's Untapped Promise - And Facebook's
August 2009Disney Buy's Marvel - Designing 3D Brands
August 2009The Google Doodle Logic
August 2009Yahoo's Missed Opportunity: The Social Web
August 2009Design Your Customer's Decisions
July 2009Organized Information is the Next Moonshot
July 2009IT Costs: Do You Speak Their Language?
June 2009It's Time to Reinvent Knowledge Work
May 2009Bring Power to the Edge
May 2009The Brain Drain that Should Worry US Businesses
May 2009Wolfram Alpha vs. Google: Power vs. Simplicity
May 2009Why Bankers Would Rather Work for $0.00 than $500
April 2009A Better Way to Rate Bonds
April 2009Twitter: A Marketer's Duct Tape
March 2009How Google Earth Can Improve Your Business
March 2009Does Cisco Have Its Head in the Clouds?
February 2009What Facebook's Stumble Can Teach Your Company
January 2009Looking to Grow Sales On the Cheap? Use Natural Spokespeople
January 2009Forget Citibank, Borrow From Bob
December 2008How Would Walt Disney Market in 2009?
November 2008Barack Obama's Edge-Based Organization
November 2008JP Morgan Chase's Risk Lessons: Are You Oxymoronic Enough
October 2008How Blackberry's Storm Could Swamp the iPhone
September 2008Microsoft Outlook: A Social Network Just Waiting to Happen
August 2008Apple's iPhone Platform Could Be Your Secret Weapon
August 2008Want to Reduce Your Energy Use? Measure It
July 2008LinkedIn: The Useful (And Profitable) Social Network
July 2008From the Google-Viacom Battles: Who Should Own Your Behavior?
June 2008Why Every Business Has the Apple iPhone Problem
June 2008Commoditized Technology and Commoditized Results
June 2008Walmart's New Information Advantage
May 2008Want to Boost Productivity? Give Workers Bigger Screens
May 2008Innovation Lessons from Amazon
April 2008The Online Talent War
April 2008Why Your Company Needs a News Room
April 2008Design Secrets of the iPhone and Blackberry
March 2008Managing Your Reputation in a World of Crowdsourcing
March 2008Everything for Free? Well, Not Quite
March 2008How to Manage Your Ratings
February 2008Get More Engaged in the Conversation About Your Company
February 2008eBay's Disappearing Customer Focus
February 2008Don't Cut IT During a Downturn
February 2008What Any Leader Can Learn from Microsoft's Yahoo Bid
January 2008How Green is Your IT?
January 2008How Open Wireless Will Change Your Business
January 2008How Technology Amplified the Mortgage Crisis
January 2008Members vs. Customers: How the Obama and Clinton Online Campaigns Differ
December 2007What Health Consumers Want
October 2005Every Product's a Platform
November/December 1995Exploiting the Virtual Value Chain
November/December 1994Managing in the Marketspace
July/August 1992Staple Yourself to an Order
March/April 1988Putting Expert Systems to Work

Strategy+Business

August 2019Are You a Producer or a Performer?
Summer 2019Facing Up to a Four-Generation Society
May 2018Quantum Underwriting: A Core Capability for Bionic Companies
Autumn 2018The Bionic Company
Winter 2018Leading a Bionic Transformation
Spring 2017The Thought Leader Interview: GE’s Bill Ruh on the Industrial Internet Revolution
December 2016Four Business Models for the Digital Age
November 2016Five Overlooked Principles Shaping the Destiny of Your Business
June 2016The Courage to Change Before You Have To
June 2016You’re a Media Company. Now What?
September 2015Stop Driving Away Your Producers
July 2015The Two Types of High-Potential Talent
December 2014What Self-Made Billionaires Do Best
July 2014How Old Industries Become Young Again

Time.com

December 29, 2014Seven Myths about Self-Made Billionaires

Forbes

July 2017Who Will Be Smart Enough for AI?

Insurance Thought Leadership

September 2020Is Intuition Dead? Probably Not, but…
August 2020'Law of Computability' Powers the Bionic Era

Wall Street Journal

January 2010The IT Platform Principle: The First Shall Not Be First

MIT Sloan Management Review

Summer 1996, Vol. 37, Num. 4.Knowledge Workers and Radically New Technology

PwC CEO Survey

June 2011Demystifying Innovation

Academic papers

2011How Platform Leaders Win, Journal of Business Strategy (with Gezinus J. Hidding and Jeffrey R. Williams)
1997Marketspace Strategy and the European Information Society (Post 1998 Deregulation), Electronic Markets (with Michael F. Quinn)
1994Managing in the Marketspace, HBS Working Paper 94-081 (with Jeffrey F. Rayport)
June 1990An Examination of the Impact of Expert Systems on the Firm: The Case of XCON, MIS Quarterly
Summer 1990New Guidelines for Dealing with Data, Information Technology Quarterly (with Mary C. Gentile)
1989Expert Systems and Their Impact on the Firm: The Effects of PlanPower Use on the Information-Processing Capacity of the Financial Collaborative, HICSS-22
Winter 1989–90Expert Systems and Their Impact on the Firm, Journal of Management Information Systems
1986PlanPower, XCON and MUDMAN: An In-Depth Analysis into Three Commercial Expert Systems in Use (DBA dissertation, Harvard Business School)
1986Business Implications of Knowledge-Based Systems, ACM SIGMIS Data Base

HBS case studies

September 1998Edmund’s--www.edmunds.com (Supplement)
July 1998Bank of Ireland (BOI): Internet Strategy
July 1998Optimark: Launching a Virtual Securities Market
July 1996Edmunds - www.edmunds.com
May 1996China Internet Corp.: http://www.China.Com
May 1996China’s Golden Projects: Reengineering the National Economy
January 1995Wildfire
1994Baxter International: OnCall As Soon as Possible
1993BellSouth Enterprises: The Cellular Billing Project
March 1992Merv Griffin’s Resorts
1992Sun Alliance Insurance Group, PLC
March 1991Manage Orders, Satisfy Customers, Make Money
February 1991George B.H. Macomber Co.--1990
1991Profiling at National Mutual (A)
1991Profiling at National Mutual (B)
1991Profiling at National Mutual (C)
June 1990Image Processing Project at USAA
1990Information Technology in Organizations: Emerging Issues in Ethics and Policy
1990Lutheran Brotherhood and the FSNAR+ Pilot
1988DuPont's Artificial Intelligence Implementation Strategy
April 1986PlanPower: The Financial Planning Expert System