Books

Brief Summary SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the answer to the global crisis of business and American-style capitalism. Out of the ashes of conventional business models arises a set of companies using their power not only for profits and sustainable growth but also social good. If you think business corporations are doomed to be lumbering, bloated, and corrupt, think again. Based on an extraordinary three-year investigation, interviewing more than 350 key people at major companies around the world, Rosabeth Moss Kanter provides encouraging and astounding evidence that this assumption is completely outdated. The businesses that are agile, keeping ahead of the curve in terms of market changes and customer needs, are the businesses that are also progressive, socially responsible human communities. Take IBM. When the tsunami and earthquake struck Asia, IBM didn’t just cut a check for relief funds and call it a day. The company used its technological expertise and skilled people to create what government and relief agencies could not: information systems to effectively track relief supplies and reunite families. While IBM did this with no commercial motive, its employees’ desire to serve people suffering during these crises stimulated innovations that later benefited the company. Or Proctor & Gamble. Despite a decade-long commitment to research and development of a water purification product, commercial prospects were unpromising. But because it was so consistent with P&G’s statement of purpose, people within the company persevered. And when the tsunami struck, it was then able to deliver roughly a billion glasses of drinking water for the victims, earning plaudits from aid partners, the media, governments, and crucially, P&G employees. SuperCorp captures the zeitgeist of the emerging twenty-first-century business. For example: • The strong potential synergy between financial performance and attention to community and social needs • The unique competitive advantage from embracing the values and expectations of a new generation of professionals • The growth opportunities that result from stressing values and supressing executive egos when seeking partners and integrating acquisitions SuperCorp is a remarkable look at the business of the future and the management skills required to get there. IBM, Banco Real, P&G, Cemex, Omron, and other companies reported on now move with the rapidity and creativity of much smaller enterprises. These companies are not perfect, but when people are empowered and values drive decisions, everything can come together in magical "Rubik’s Cube moments” of deep satisfaction. Kanter’s compelling and inspiring stories show that people are more inclined to be creative when their company values innovation that helps the world. ISBN:9780307382351 Author:Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Brief Summary Purple Cow was the #1 bestselling marketing book on Amazon in 2003. Now in Free Prize Inside, Seth Godin is back with practical advice on how to put Purple Cow thinking to work inside your organization (big or small, profit or non) to MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN. The next big marketing idea is a proven strategy for making your products or services so remarkable that they practically sell themselves. Purple Cow taught marketers the value of standing out from the herd, which is how companies like Krispy Kreme and JetBlue made it big. But it left readers hungry for more: How do you actually think up new Purple Cows? And how do you get them adopted by risk-averse Brown Cow companies? Free Prize Inside delivers those answers and much more. It’s a fun guide to doing innovative marketing that really works when the traditional approaches have all stopped working. Thirty years ago, the best way to sell something was to advertise it on television. But today’s consumers are cynical, and your product or service had better be more than just hype and clever advertising. Even better, it ought to come with a market-changing innovation—a free prize inside. You don’t have to spend a fortune to create something cool that virtually sells itself. Think of simple but powerful innovations like the Tupperware party, Flintstones vitamins, G.I. Joe (a doll just for boys), Lucille Roberts (a gym just for women), and frequent flier miles. Free Prize Inside will teach you how to create those kinds of blockbusters at your own company without a bunch of MBA-brainwashed marketers. You don’t have to be a genius—you just need curiosity, initiative, and a strategy for overcoming resistance when you champion your idea. We’re all marketers now, no matter what our job titles. With Godin’s help, we can find the free prize that will transform our companies. ISBN:9781591840411 Author:Seth Godin

Brief Summary What ants, bees, fish, and smart swarms can teach us about communication, organization, and decision-making The modern world may be obsessed with speed and productivity, but twenty-first-century humans actually have much to learn from the ancient instincts of swarms. A fascinating new take on the concept of collective intelligence and its colorful manifestations in some of our most complex problems, "The Smart Swarm" introduces a compelling new understanding of the real experts on solving our own complex problems relating to such topics as business, politics, and technology. Based on extensive globe-trotting research, this lively tour from "National Geographic" reporter Peter Miller introduces thriving throngs of ant colonies, which have inspired computer programs for streamlining factory processes, telephone networks, and truck routes; termites, used in recent studies for climate-control solutions; schools of fish, on which the U.S. military modeled a team of robots; and many other examples of the wisdom to be gleaned about the behavior of crowds-among critters and corporations alike. In the tradition of James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds" and the innovative works of Malcolm Gladwell, "The Smart Swarm" is an entertaining yet enlightening look at small-scale phenomena with big implications for us all. ISBN:9781583333907 Author:Peter Miller

Brief Summary Here’s how it works: you read a book, you recommend it to a friend. That friend tells another friend. And another... until the book becomes this year’s word-of-mouth sensation. This is the first to analyze the power of the 'pass-it-on’ phenomenon, introducing us to the architects of the mightily efficient, money-spinning model known as the Viral Loop - the secret behind some of the most successful businesses in recent history. Outfits such as Google, eBay, Flickr and Facebook all employ the model at their core; all have seen their stock valuations skyrocket within years of forming. The genius lies in the model’s reliance on replication: what’s the point of using Facebook if none of your friends can see your profile, or using Flickr if you can’t share your photos? Where’s the joy in posting a video on YouTube if no one watches it? Thus, in creating a viral product that people want, need and desire, growth can, and will, take care of itself. Find out why the Loop will catch us all up, sooner rather than later... ISBN:9780340918692 Author:Adam Penenberg

Brief Summary Although more products and services are available than ever before, companies are still sending out the wrong message by giving their customers boring, apathetic, impatient, and uninspired service, when an organisation's commercial success is incumbent upon making customers feel valued. "Customer Loyalty Guaranteed" shows leaders at all levels how to awaken the "spirit to serve" in every employee. It includes the seven customer service personalities that build unbreakable customer loyalty and practices for maintaining remarkable service over the long-term.Customer service gurus Chip Bell and John Patterson provide fresh concepts on how organisations must deal with today's "new" customer, and show companies how to infuse their organisations with passion that customers will connect to. ISBN:9781598694680 Author:Chip R. Bell

Brief Summary Some people are born to sell. Stephan Schiffman is not one of those people. But he is one of the best salespeople around—because he patiently and carefully trained himself to watch born salespeople and learn how they did it. Now this acclaimed sales guru passes these secrets of successful selling on to you: • Attitude is money • Right attitude, right look • Warming up to cold calling • Getting the appointment • Closing the deal If you follow Stephan Schiffman's winning formula, you can discover the right words and the right approach because you've not only learned to sell—you've learned to sell like the best. ISBN:9781598691474 Author:Stephan Schiffman

Brief Summary Which of Apple, Google and Microsoft had an office with a "drawer of broken dreams" ---and what (real) objects lay inside it? When did Microsoft have the chance to catch Google in making money from search ---and who vetoed it? Why did Google test 40 shades of blue on its users? How long did outside developers wait before asking to write apps for Apple's iPhone after Steve Jobs announced it? Who said that Microsoft should have its own music player -- and why did it fail? Digital Wars starts in 1998, when the internet and computing business was about to be upended -- by an antitrust case, a tiny startup and a former giant rebuilding itself. Arthur looks at what are now the three best-known tech companies and through the voices of former and current staff examines their different strategies to try to win the battle to control the exploding network connecting the world. Microsoft was a giant -- soon to become the highest-valued company in the world, while Apple was a minnow and Google just a startup. By February 10 2012, Apple was worth more ($462bn) than both Microsoft ($258bn) and Google ($198bn) combined. The chance had come from tumultuous battles between the three. To win their battles: Apple used design, the vertical model of controlling the hardware and software and a relentless focus on the customer to the exclusion of others. Microsoft depended on the high quality of its employees' programming skills and its monopolies in software to try to move into new markets - such as search and music. Google focused on being quick, efficient and using the power of data analysis - not human "taste" - to make decisions and get ahead of would-be rivals. With exclusive information from interviews with current and former employees of the three companies Arthur also addresses: • What the inventors of the hard drive used in the iPod thought it would really be used for • How Apple transformed the smartphone market • Which of Android or Apple forced Microsoft to abandon Windows Mobile • What happened to Microsoft's tablet plans ISBN:9780749464134 Author:Charles Arthur

Brief Summary A Brand-New Approach to Brand-Building. For Consumers. For Companies. For Life. If you want to build and strengthen your brand in the twenty-first century, you need more than clever grassroots promotions and hip guerrilla marketing. You need Living Brands, Raymond Nadeau's dynamic, groundbreaking approach to branding that shows you, in six simple steps, how to become an integral part of your consumers' lives. Living Brands is based on a passion for understanding consumers' lives and their existing needs. It uses the latest strategies of consumer collaboration to create a more culturally evolved, emotionally engaged, holistic connection to consumers. As one of the marketing industry's global pioneers, Raymond Nadeau has seen how the marketing world has changed. He provides examples of what works and what doesn't in today's consumer-savvy market. Packed with interviews from today's finest creative and cultural minds, he reveals six secrets to creating brands that truly fascinate and fulfill consumers' needs. You'll learn about Five Top Global Trend Agencies, which come together for the first time to provide insight into customer collaboration Culture Casting, a new model of consumer segmentation Consumer as Creator, a new concept of brand-building based on actual lifestyles, as well as creating what Nadeau calls brand biospheres Megatrends, the four must-have ingredients for living brands The Focus Group Hoax, the difference between what consumers say and what they really mean Living Brands gives you all the tools you need to adapt your brand to an ever-changing world of consumers, options, and interests. It's the intelligent way to respond to consumers' realities-and the only true way to build stellar brands that will stand the test of time. ISBN:9780071466141 Author:Raymond Nadeau