Business

Brief Summary The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation Part manifesto, part handbook, THE DESIGNFUL COMPANY provides a lively overview of a growing trend in management--design thinking as a business competence. According to the author, traditional managers have relied on a two-step process to make decisions, which he calls "knowing" and "doing." Yet in today's innovation-driven marketplace, managers need to insert a middle step, called "making." Making is a phase in which assumptions are questioned, futures are imagined, and prototypes are tested, producing a wide range of options that didn't exist before. The reader is challenged to consider the author's bold assertion: There can be no real innovation without design. Those who are new to Marty Neumeier's "whiteboard" series may want to ramp up with the first two books, THE BRAND GAP and ZAG. Both are easy reads. Covered in THE DESIGNFUL COMPANY: 1. the top 10 "wicked problems" that only design can solve 2. a new, broader definition of design 3. why designing trumps deciding in an era of change 4. how to harness the "organic drivetrain" of value creation 5. how aesthetics add nuance to managing 6. 16 levers to transform your company 7. why you should bring design management inside 8. how to assemble an innovation metateam 9. how to recognize and reward talent ISBN:9780321580061 Author:Marty Neumeier

Brief Summary People, Planet, Profit: How to Embrace Sustainability for Innovation and Business Growth In today's changing, untrusting markets, companies need to do something more to stand out -- something special to succeed. If that extra something is also more sustainable, in that it's long-lasting and that it's supportive of the wider world, then it has the best chance of creating larger and longer impact. People, Planet, Profit focuses on three ways that companies can grow their business while transforming their values: by defining a purpose to their business beyond profit -- what it does for people's lives and society in general; by translating that into a compelling proposition for customers; and by aligning the whole business to deliver this proposition practically and more profitably. Author Peter Fisk writes in the engaging voice that made his book Marketing Genius so popular. ISBN:9780749454111 Author:Peter Fisk

Brief Summary In this first collection of interviews since the bestselling 9-11, our foremost intellectual activist examines crucial new questions of U.S. foreign policy. Timely, urgent, and powerfully elucidating, this important volume of previously unpublished interviews conducted by award-winning radio journalist David Barsamian features Noam Chomsky discussing America’s policies in an increasingly unstable world. With his famous insight, lucidity, and redoubtable grasp of history, Chomsky offers his views on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the doctrine of "preemptive” strikes against so-called rogue states, and the prospects of the second Bush administration, warning of the growing threat to international peace posed by the U.S. drive for domination. In his inimitable style, Chomsky also dissects the propaganda system that fabricates a mythic past and airbrushes inconvenient facts out of history. Barsamian, recipient of the ACLU’s Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, has conducted more interviews and radio broadcasts with Chomsky than has any other journalist. Enriched by their unique rapport, Imperial Ambitions explores topics Chomsky has never before discussed, among them the 2004 presidential campaign and election, the future of Social Security, and the increasing threat, including devastating weather patterns, of global warming. The result is an illuminating dialogue with one of the leading thinkers of our time—and a startling picture of the turbulent times in which we live. ISBN:9780805079678 Author:Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian

Brief Summary Inside Chinese Business: A Guide for Managers Worldwide "A guide for anyone who wants to engage the Chinese in cooperative endeavor." — "Foreign Affairs." Ming-Jer Chen takes readers "Inside Chinese Business" to reveal the social and cultural values that underpin Chinese business practices and influence day-to-day corporate decisions. Drawing from his intimate knowledge of Chinese culture and history and from his extensive managerial work and international experience, Chen provides an unrivaled insider's perspective on how to work, compete, and cooperate successfully with Chinese companies around the globe. Ming-Jer Chen is the Bigelow Research Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School of the University of Virginia. He is also Senior Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Visiting Professor of Management at the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, England. Dr. Chen was formerly Founder/Director of the Wharton School's Global Chinese Business Initiative. ISBN:9781591393276 Author:Ming-Jer Chen

Brief Summary Martin Lindstrom, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of "small data” in his quest to discover the next big thing Hired by the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends 300 nights a year in strangers’ homes, carefully observing every detail in order to uncover their hidden desires, and, ultimately, the clues to a multi-million dollar product. Lindstrom connects the dots in this globetrotting narrative that will enthrall enterprising marketers, as well as anyone with a curiosity about the endless variations of human behavior. You’ll learn… 1. How a noise reduction headset at 35,000 feet led to the creation of Pepsi’s new trademarked signature sound. 2. How a worn down sneaker discovered in the home of an 11-year-old German boy led to LEGO’s incredible turnaround. 3. How a magnet found on a fridge in Siberia resulted in a U.S. supermarket revolution. 4. How a toy stuffed bear in a girl’s bedroom helped revolutionize a fashion retailer’s 1,000 stores in 20 different countries. 5. How an ordinary bracelet helped Jenny Craig increase customer loyalty by 159% in less than a year. 6. How the ergonomic layout of a car dashboard led to the redesign of the Roomba vacuum. ISBN:9781250080684 Author:Martin Lindstrom

Brief Summary The Creative Priority: Driving Innovative Business in the Real World How does your company define creativity? Or does creativity define your company? In this remarkable book, Jerry Hirshberg, founder and president of Nissan Design International (NDI), distills his experience as leader of the world's hotbed of automotive innovation and reveals his strategy for designing an organization around creativity. Rather than championing the traditional treatment of creativity as a vital component in business, Hirshberg shows how creativity can become the fundamental organizing principle of business. "Business," Hirshberg writes in the introduction, "begins with an idea. And as never before, its growth, stability and ultimate success depend upon innovation and a continuing flow of imaginative thought. Throughout this book I will maintain that the most urgent business of business is ideas." Yet, Hirshberg claims, business has never been more poorly suited for stimulating original ideas. "Current organizational models revolving around productivity and efficiency at any cost produce a corporate culture hardly conducive to thinking -- much less innovative thinking." In The Creative Priority, Hirshberg describes how NDI produced a culture that fostered innovation, enabling his team to produce such cutting-edge designs as Nissan's Altima, Pathfinder, Quest and Maxima; Ford's Villager; and Infiniti's J30. Hirshberg weaves together enlightening real-world anecdotes with the story of NDI's genesis to illustrate 11 interlocking strategies that came to define NDI's creative priority. The strategies are arranged according to four principles: 1. Polarity: Typically seen as an obstacle to creative thinking, the friction that exists among individuals or systems of thought can be harnessed to generate original ideas. 2. Unprecedented Thinking: The Nissan Altima materialized after Hirshberg's entire company played hooky midday to see the opening of The Silence of the Lambs. Imagining a new idea into existence requires both stubborn determination and a childlike openness to serendipity. 3. Beyond the Edges: Many of the strategies for fostering creativity loose us from our moorings and blur the boundaries between traditionally distinct disciplines. 4. Synthesis: All too often corporations set creative activity apart from the rest of the organization. Far from being a romantic escape from disciplined thinking, genuine creative thought should be an imaginative escape with disciplined thinking. 5. Richly illustrated with NDI's elegant designs and sketches, The Creative Priority is at once a compelling narrative, a rich store of hands-on experience and a grab bag of breakthrough insights that can help your business perform its most important function. ISBN:9780887308307 Author:Jerry Hirshberg

Brief Summary Building upon the strengths of the first edition, Understanding Strategic Management, Second Edition, features an exceptionally clear writing style that conveys complex information in a clear manner. It also retains the previous edition's use of analysis; relevant, up-to-date case material; and coverage of various perspectives in the field. Numerous real-life examples help to illustrate the core concepts and theory underlying strategic management. With an emphasis on providing students with essential analytical tools, this edition links the text more closely to the Companion Website. The website hosts additional quantitative material, which is signposted throughout the text. ISBN:9780199581610 Author:Anthony Henry