Couched as an us-vs.-them guide for corporations in the realm of technology innovation, this perceptive book shows how big companies can defeat the nimble upstarts through the strategic use of resources, the implementation of three principles and the following of eight rules.
Mui (co-author Unleashing the Killer App, 2000) and former Wall Street Journal reporter and editor Carroll’s (co-author Billion Dollar Lessons, 2008) latest joint work builds on the idea that, to beat startups, large companies must leverage their greater assets (e.g., people, resources, branding, supply chains, distribution networks, customer relations, and market and customer data) in the context of six key technological innovations: mobile devices, cameras, sensors, social media, the cloud and “emergent knowledge.” Three principles guide the approach: first, “Think Big,” the initial phase in redesigning a business, which calls for starting fresh, embracing the context of the business environment and considering potential worst-case scenarios; second, “Start Small,” as in make sure everyone in the company is on the same page, and don’t rush to let financial projections limit or run the company, since those numbers can be inaccurate; and third, “Learn Fast” regarding rules about the value of showing versus telling and welcoming a devil’s advocate into strategy planning. The clear, engaging prose is highlighted by plenty of anecdotes and four case studies. Additionally, many readers will find the afterword—“Moving from Innovation to Invention”—well worth their time, especially if they wish to create their own technological earthquakes instead of merely using disruptive technologies to their advantage. The partisan pro–big-business stance shouldn’t prevent the other side—e.g., startups, entrepreneurs, small-business owners—from taking advantage of these insights to see what their savvy, outsize competitors will soon be up to. The sagacious, well-rounded guide will also appeal to investors, teachers, students, journalists and historians, all of whom might have a vested interest in the future of the tech industry and the next big thing.
An erudite anthem for large companies reshaping themselves to innovate and compete with agile startups.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9892420-1-1
Page Count: 189
Publisher: Cornerloft Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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