Nicholas Carr writes on business topics for publications ranging from the New York Times and Financial Times to the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review to Wired and Optimize. He writes a regular column on innovation for Strategy & Business and formerly was a columnist for the Industry Standard.

Articles and Interviews

Wall Street Journal

How to Be a Smart Innovator (Interview)

Figuring out where to innovate is as important as figuring out how to innovate.

MIT Sloan Management Review

The End of Corporate Computing

What comes next is completely different.

In Praise of Walls

Why the hype about borderless companies is dangerous.

Strategy & Business

The Ignorance of Crowds

The open source model can play an important role in innovation, but know its limitations.

The Weakest Link

Where progress bogs down, profits lurk.

Complementary Genius

Sometimes "sticking to your knitting" isn't the best strategy.

Flying Blind

It's hard to recognize a magnificent failure when it's taking off.

Top-Down Disruption

What Clayton Christensen doesn't tell you about disruptive innovation.

Suits to the Rescue

The most lucrative innovations rarely come from creative types.

Bridging the Breakthrough Gap

Creating disruptions is fine, but mending them can be better.

Mastering Imitation

Before you think about how to innovate, think about where to innovate.

New York Times

Does not compute

The FBI enters software hell, a very crowded place.

Microsoft Is Dead. Long Live Microsoft.

Software is immortal - and that's the problem.

Business Week Online

Lessons in Corporate Blogging

Blogs can be useful tools for business communication, but beware of the pitfalls.

Amazon.com's Split Personality

Is it a retailer or a tech firm? It may be time for Jeff Bezos to decide.

Tech: Where the Last Are First

Suddenly, it's the little guys who are leading the way.

Big Software's Blood Sport

The real reason SAP and Oracle are battling to buy Retek.

Dell: Beware the Beige-Box Blahs

Will Dell lose its grip on the home market?

Requiem for the corporate PC

We're in the middle of a big PC upgrade cycle. Will it be the last?

Business Week

The Tech Advantage is Overrated (Interview)

Why it rarely pays to be an IT pioneer anymore.

Financial Times

The IT Advantage Thrown Into Question

Are you expecting too much from your investments in information technology?

Secrets of Succession

The hiring of CEOs has become a theater of the absurd.
Co-written with Rakesh Khurana.

Harvard Business Review

It Doesn't Matter

As information technology's power and ubiquity have increased, its strategic importance has decreased. That has profound implications for corporate IT management.

Hypermediation: Commerce as ClickstreaM

Forget disintermediation. We've entered an era of hypermediation, with dozens of players competing for tiny pieces of every sale.

Unreal Options

Business investments open options for future action. But that doesn't mean they can be valued like financial options.

Bob's Meltdown

A crusty but effective business manager just blew his stack at a corporate exec. What should the CEO do? An HBR case study.

Starting Up in High Gear: An Interview with Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla

The definitive interview with the influential Kleiner Perkins partner.

On the Edge: An Interview with Akamai's George Conrades

What went on inside an Internet juggernaut.

Being Virtual: Character and the New Economy

What happens to our souls when we go digital? A review of Richard Sennett's The Corrosion of Character.

Managing in the Euro Zone

Perspectives on the strategic and operational implications of a common European currency.

Wired

Want to Piss Off a CEO?

Tech industry leaders may not want to admit it, but their own strategies are turning their companies' products into commodities.

DigitAll

Is Greatness a Network Effect?

Don't expect greatness to emerge from the wisdom of the crowd.

The Banker

Leaner Technology, Larger Profits

Banks have been some of the biggest investors in information technology. The time has come to get more for less.

Boston Globe

The Growing Specter of Deflation

History shows that deflation can be the price of an economic boom.

Business 2.0

Partnering Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Is outsourcing undermining your company's strategy?

The Industry Standard

Get Back in That Box

Nonlinear thinking is hot. It's also dumb.

The Big Picture

It's better to be different than to be fast.

Plastic Medium

The meaning of Blogger.

Strategic Defense Initiative

The Internet shakeout has changed the rules of engagement. Speed and cooperation are out. Patience and ruthlessness are in.

Gated Communities

The next big competitive battle is for the very soul of the Internet.

Beyond Exchanges

Two visions of the future of B2B, both radically different from current expectations.

The Mouse That Roared

Internet applications erase the operating differences among companies. That makes innovation more important than ever.

Giant Steps

Success on the Internet often requires leaping from one business model to another. Here's how to make sure you land in the right place.

No Margin for Error

Online sellers have learned a hard lesson: Efficient markets wreak havoc on profits.

Be What You Aren't

On the Internet, competitive advantage is a means, not an end. To succeed, you need to seek leverageable advantages.

Out of Site

What happens to your business when Web sites become obsolete?

Old and in the Way

In the Information Age, the spoils will often go to those who can hack the business infrastructure.

Bonfire of the Brands

E-commerce promotes rational shopping. That could diminish the value of brands.

The Myth of Scalability

Supersizing your e-business isn't always the answer, especially if it's as easy for competitors to get big as it is for you.

From Strategies to Business Models

In a fast-changing economy, testing hypotheses can matter more than proving theories.