This short book reviews the “challenges, ideas, and trends” in the use of information technology (IT) in business. The particular areas discussed are intelligent machines, wearable technologies, digital currencies, data visualization, digital security, neurophysiological tools, organizational transformation, and aligning IT with business strategy. A penultimate chapter presents examples of digital business innovations currently in use. The intended reader is assumed to have some familiarity with IT. Such a reader will gain guidance on where to look and will learn vocabulary. For each area, advantages, technological requirements, and risks are described. Notes on each chapter follow.

Intelligent machines may use knowledge generated from experience or learn autonomously, often through neural networks. An aspect of machine intelligence is data mining, finding valuable knowledge in large databases. A common methodology is cross-industry standard process for data mining (CRISP-DM). Machine intelligence has been deployed in healthcare, either in pattern recognition or in data mining. Machine intelligence has also been deployed in manufacturing, for control and adaptive planning.

The wearable technology market is of significant size and is growing. Most present applications track what a wearer is doing, as in fitness devices, although patient monitoring and compliance assurance look promising. Body-worn cameras could be valuable to anyone susceptible to frivolous lawsuits.

Bitcoin is probably the best-known digital currency, but the book describes 13 different digital currencies. A digital currency is built on a distributed ledger. (As I’m writing this review, a major fraud has been reported dealing with digital currency, making its future less exciting.)

Data visualization has become essential in the increasingly common situations where a great deal of data is generated. Effective data visualization can be a basis for decision making. The technique of radial and hyperbolic trees is illustrated and five common visualization tools presented.

Digital security is becoming more pressing because of the increasing availability of social media. Although technological approaches to security are necessary, the weakest link in preventing malware is usually human.

Neurophysiological tools include brain imaging by measuring voltage outside the skull or by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Another neurophysiological tool is skin conductance. These tools can be used for medical purposes; understanding the emotional state of an autistic person is one example. The bulk of the chapter, however, deals with marketing uses: estimating the effectiveness of advertising. Although several large corporations are investing a lot of money into neuro-marketing, the scientific validity of the results is not clear.

Coping mechanisms for dealing with IT changes are not well understood, but ignoring the stress induced when a new computer system is introduced can reduce the effectiveness of the new technology. The chapter discusses IT ambidexterity, the ability for an organization to both explore new IT and to exploit the IT it possesses.

The four themes of a digital business strategy are scope, scale, speed, and sources of value creation. Examples of successful strategy integration are Amazon and Netflix. Fact sheets on eight innovative digital companies follow. The examples are worthwhile, but the information presented seems to have been supplied by the companies. Similarly, most topics in the book are presented uncritically.

Reading the book can be annoying, as the text needs editing.