Competitions Books

Daphne du Maurier is one of the great unappreciated writers of the 20th century, and I was pleased to find this opinion validated in "The Wall Street Journal" this past weekend. Her insights into human nature make her a writer of the first order; and her ability to build suspense and atmosphere with her deft characterizations and descriptions are superb.

It's hard for me to decide which Du Maurier book is my favorite -- of course I read and re-read "Rebecca" many times, and was fascinated by "My Cousin Rachel" -- but I think "The Scapegoat" may actually be my favorite. Something about the narrator, John, really connects with the longing to belong and care about something or someone that lives in all of us. I found myself turning the pages compulsively, marvelling at how credible she made this incredible story seem. If you haven't read du Maurier before, treat yourself to this little gem or any of them. You will enrich your world, no doubt about it.

Never have I wished for a person with questionable values to be the winner or try to solve an unsolvable problem. It would be worse if there were not a child involved! No one should give away anything in this intriguing novel. As good as Rebecca, and I never heard of it until now. Start reading and you're hooked. I bet you don't put it down very often until you arrive at the final end. A great book club discussion!

The theme of the living double or strange twin is not uncommon in literature. In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's, The Double, (1846) Mr. Golyadkin believes he sees himself on a train, haunted by this manifestation, he becomes obsessed with meeting himself, chasing this figure endlessly through the streets of St Petersburg. Many have commented that this nightmarish story is ultimately about the fear of confronting one's darker nature, the terrible "other", and if viewed in totality, could well lead to death.

In The Scapegoat, du Maurier explores a similar theme, where the protagonist, John, a very English and staid history lecturer of French culture, one evening meets his exact double in the train station at Le Mans. John is bored, searching for some connection to life, a meaning to his empty existence. Jean de Gue, however, has a full life, a member of an aristocratic family, a wife, child and a century's old business and the many problems that come with so many connections and responsibilities. He's not happy with this life and wants only to escape. Both men have dinner, drink too much, and John wakes up the next morning to find his cloths and belongings vanished, and Gaston, the driver and head servant, ready to drive him (John) back to the Chateau, St Giles. John decides to play the role of Jean de Gue's scapegoat, though in a few days, finds himself inextricably involved, emotionally and otherwise, in de Gue's affairs and family.

Du Maurier is an excellent writer. John's journey into the world of his double is strangely intriguing, as he narrates his deceptions and observations, and how easily he falls into the role. No one in the family suspects his masquerade, though he comes very close to revealing himself many times. The repressed emotions and history of du Gue's family runs deep and hold numerous dark secrets. I found myself rushing through the tale to discover these secrets and what John will do next. The plot sounds outlandish on the surface, but this is psychological realism at its best, causing this reader at least, to become obsessed with how the story finally resolves itself - and it is not disappointing.

These characters certainly come from another time and another place. Jean de Gue's daughter, Marie-Noel, is a deeply religious child who experiences visions and loves her father beyond words. My thought was that if any of the family would see through John's deceptions, it would be the child. This young child, through her innocence, is the only voice of truth in the house, and her antics and precocious dialogue speaks of another time - a truly unique and memorable character.

This is a masterful piece of literature, a unique thriller that will be just as fascinating and entertaining for readers a hundred years from now.

This is my second book of Du Maurier. I was intrigued by the-Prince-Pauper thingy but with more weight on the issue that caused the charade. Although I can't say I like the ending but I feel it is the true way to end this story. Not a simple type of ending where everybody get all they wanted, the good characters win over the bad. It belongs to the whole story, adding the irony. Each character was in grey zone, no one was all white or black.

The issue of family and people relationship played the circumstances over the exchange of John and Jean, the 2 look-alike person but with very different background. John, the loner, had no family ties, as the narrator. While Jean, a father, lives with a sick mother, a silent sister and a troubled family of his brother to deal with. While John felt himself as a spectator of life, Jean complained about his demanding family. Was it only the family's fault or Jean's himself who caused the oppressive situation?

All things were started from inside oneself. It is like throwing a stone into a pool effect. What you think, which will come out as words / action will affect all the people around you. What you think a good decision does not always give the same impression to other people because each person has her/his own perception, unique way of viewing a problem.

You would just feel as conceited as the characters you were reading. A thoughtful story.

Apparently,'The Scapegoat' is not one of Ms. DuMaurier's more popular novels, and having just finished reading this curious and frustrating book, I think I see why. While I had to admire DdM's undeniably virtuosic technical achievement, I can't say that it gave me the same pleasure I usually derive from reading her books. Certain aspects of the plot, most obviously the non-filial resemblance between the narrator John, and Jean de Gue' I found just too far-fetched to swallow. How could his family have had no idea that this was not the man they knew? Even if their looks were identical, would the British John's French be completely unaccented? Other personal traits and idiosyncrasies would surely reveal themselves to a close family member. I felt I was asked to suspend far too much disbelief in this regard. On a moral level, I can't say that I cared at all for how the imposter falsely manipulated everyone with whom he came into contact during his week at St. Gilles, though I have to say I found no one in the household to be a particulary sympathetic character, and was never really bothered about their ultimate fates. I found the hothouse atmosphere of St. Gilles to be stifling and claustrophobic, and looked forward to the scene shifting to Villars and the verrerie, where I could breathe a bit of fresh air. Though John may have possessed more 'tendresse' than his non-attendant double, I still found him cold, manipulative and never fully human. There were times during my reading of 'The Scapegoat' when I thought I could just not finish the book, the action remaining stagnant for long stretches, and the characters just too trying on my nerves. What redeemed it all for me in the end was DdM's consummate use of language and single-mindedness in stitching her story through to the end. Perhaps an eventual rereading will prove enlightening, as I may just not have 'gotten' it the first time through.

I loved the anime series for this as well. The drawing is well done; similar to other CLAMP works and the characters are very much the same from the anime, if you have already watched it. I like the humor of the series and how the main character Misaki is always going, "Eeeks!" And mad scientist Icchan and his "Icchan went boom!" mantra always makes me laugh as well.

Misako is new to the city and has just found out about Angelic Layer - a game where robotic dolls, controlled by the will and spirit of their owners, fight for fame and glory. She wishes to join in on the sport but it takes money and experience. Misako, like most young twelve-year olds, has little in the way of cash and has no experience with the game at all.
Yet with the help of a slightly-unbalanced scientist and a Angel of her own design she might make it all the way to the finals.
If you are a fan of CLAMP or the Angelic Layer anime you might wish to start collecting this manga.

I have all five volumes of "Angelic Layer", and I think it's good. Elementary student Misaki Suzuhara discovers the world of Angelic Layer, a popular game where contestants battle their own custom made dolls. Misaki makes her doll designed for speed, and names her Hikaru. Hikaru is small like Misaki, but she wins battles through planning and strategizing, proving that bigger is not always better.

The story was pretty good, if not a little predictable. The characters are ok too, but they are a little stereotyped. The art is cute, and the battle scenes are detailed. If you can, buy the editions without the red Tokyopop symbol on the spine because they have nice color pictures in the front.

One of the biggest attractions for me with this manga was the major crossover with "Chobits". A few characters from "Chobits" appear, like Minoru's sister Kaede.

Overall, this is a cute, fun manga that teaches the value of trying your best. I would mostly recommend it to younger readers, but others can enjoy it as well.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Clamp. I've read/seen many of their series and I've loved them all. Unfortunately, I found Angelic Layer to be exteremly disappointing and if I had to choose a least favorite Clamp series, it would have to be Angelic Layer. The biggest problem I had with this manga was the characters. None of the characters struck me as particularly interesting and Angelic Layer is completely devoid of any character developement. Gone is the usual love-triangle angst fest that are practically staples of Clamp series, all the characters in Angelic Layer remain virtually the same. Then, at the end of the series some characters are just randomly coupled together in ways that don't really make sense. The plot is highly predictable and the ending is just downright terrible.

Misaki's mother's reasons for leaving her (which I won't reveal her for spoilers' sake, so don't worry) is way too cheesy. Thank goodness Angelic Layer was only five volumes long. I think I would have given this series up if it were any longer. However, that isn't to say that there isn't anything good about Angelic Layer. Icchan was a wonderful character that I loved to bits. He's actually my favorite Angelic Layer character. There's lots of comical moments in the manga that really make me laugh and as predictable as they were, the battles in this series were fun. The artwork is also fantastic, as to be expected from Clamp, and I like the way they drew the characters all squid-like during certain comedy scenes.

If Angelic Layer was Clamp's first series, I would have given it a higher rating, since it's still a cut above the rest of the crap that's out there. But Clamp is more than capable than producing better series than this, so I have to unfortunately judge it harshly. One other good thing about Angelic Layer is that it's the safest series Clamp has. There is abosuletly nothing objectionable in Angelic Layer at all. So, if you know any little kids that like anime or manga, Angelic Layer would be the perfect series to use to introduce them to Clamp. I've heard that the anime version is better than the manga, and from what little I've seen of the anime, I have actually liked it more, but this manga was just very disappointing. The only reasons why I can see why one would want to read Angelic Layer is if you're either a diehard Clamp fan or a little kid. But if you want something that truly represents Clamp at their best, I recommend reading something like Cardcaptor Sakura or Chobits instead.

I wanted to see Angelic Layer ever since I saw some music videos on the Internet. After watching the fan-subs numerous times I knew I had to have the dvds when they came out. Then I read the manga...

It's hard to believe, but I actually think the manga is better than the anime in this case. In the anime, Misaki is more doubtful and distracted (even during the fights). In the manga, however, she's super-cute all the time, but when she starts a battle that's all her mind is on.

And speaking of battle, I don't think I've seen a manga yet where I liked the fight-sequences quite as much. The back-flipping, cartwheeling, super-graceful movements of the angels on the layer is simply a joy to behold on the printed page.

The dialog of the characters also seems (to me at least) to have more snap to it in the manga than on the show, and Icchan in particular is so incredibly hilarious I couldn't help but laugh out loud many times when reading Angelic Layer. The art style is interesting as well, as the characters are supremely well-defined and well-drawn at dramatic moments but turn into very silly (and very funny) "squid" versions during comedy dialog.

This is one manga that pretty much anyone can read. There's enough action to satisfy the martial-arts lovers, enough cuteness to satisfy a little girl, and none of the sex and violence garbage that could otherwise mar an excellent story.

I can't recommend this Manga highly enough.

I bought the book because the co author Oren Harari is brillant. I could not finish the book. I'm one of those people who can't read a book and watch tv at the same time. The constant references to the coyote, road runner and acme was like having a loud tv on. I could not concentrate after two chapters I retired the book to the scrap heap. I really wanted to send it back to Chip and tell him to edit out some of the interference because I believe he and Oren had something to say.

In Beep! Beep!, Bell and Harari provide the reader with an entertaining look at business practice and culture today. In highlighting the behavior and actions of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, the authors provide a compare and contrast view of all facets of business and a unique perspective on how to be more competitive. The message is simple and clear, capturing the spirit of what it takes to compete in the fast-paced, global marketplace. (The book's preface is: "Road Runners don't have prefaces...they just begin!") Although the boxes which describe actual scenes from the Road Runner cartoons get a bit redundant as the book moves along, the "Birdseed" and "Tail Feathers" sections that summarize most of the chapters were appropriate and welcome. All-in-all, Beep! Beep! is a worthwhile read. It can easily be consumed in an average plane ride (as I did).

The book is an enjoyable and delighting reading. While it does not make many original contributions, it does illustrate and organize many principles well. The use of the Roadrunner as its symbol is an excellent vehicle. The parallels drawn seem appropirate and not stretched. With the same evangelical zeal of other business writers, Bell and Harari commuicate their feelings effectively. The use of media, in this case a cartoon, to illustrate principles is a valuable format. As increasing numbers of people are 'programmed' on animated media in contrast to written media, the use of contemporary media is quite effective. The book, origianlly published in 2000, will have to be evaluated in time. In the same way Tom Peters' 'Excellent Companies' were reviewed for performance. It was interesting to note that the authors cited Lucent Technologies and Iridium as prime examples of 'Working on Borrowed Brains.' All told, the book will contribute buzzwords to our lexicon. Update your buzzword bingo cards.

Wile E. Coyote hovers in a hot air balloon over the road, waiting to drop an anvil on the unsuspecting Road Runner. Wile E. puts a grenade in the seat of a toy airplane and ... you know what happens. He becomes the victim of his own diabolical plans. The Road Runner wins every time. Chip R. Bell and Oren Harari’s book turns a cartoon classic into a wonderful metaphor for today’s fast-paced work environment. Organizations are changing their cunning competitive ways. Instead of behaving like Wile E. Coyote, they are becoming like the quick, agile, joyful Road Runner. In an amusing style, the authors illustrate their points with cartoons of the famous duo and plenty of plot scenarios and interesting tidbits of trivia. The “Birdseed” sections scatter tips to help you and your company make the transition to the wide-open desert of opportunity ahead. Those who grew up with Road Runner will relate to this book immediately. We ...recommend this book to Road Runner’s business fans or to anyone who wants to have fun while learning how to steer a company through the speedy new marketplace.

The Road Runner cartoons are classic. Most of us grew up laughing out loud as Wile E. Coyote encountered one challenge after another in his attempts to capture the Road Runner. The scenarios were simple. The coyote devised ways to capture lunch, never winning the competition. His tools, all products of Acme Company, backfired on him. He caused himself a great deal of difficulty, while the Road Runner went on with his life, practically oblivious to the coyote's campaign.

At the start of their book, Bell and Harari note that coyotes can run 30 miles per hour and road runners can't really fly and can only run 16 miles per hour. Wile E. Coyote has an endless arsenal of gadgets to trap the road runner, all provided by his single supplier, Acme. He's a master planner, yet continually fails . . . of his own volition. What's the problem here? Why is the Road Runner so successful? Because he's operating under different rules. The coyote may be seen as chained to conventional wisdom, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A bureaucrat. The Road Runner is more like the agile entrepreneur, competing with a whole different paradigm.

The authors take this familiar cartoon and turn it into an instructive business case. Their objective is to help us become road runners among coyotes. In page after page, they pull lessons from the cartoons that we probably all missed as kids, comparing the characters and their motivations and their results. "Wile E. Coyote is preoccupied, earnest, conniving, and grim. The Road Runner is joyful, light, and free. Wile E. does nothing but go from pursuing one meal to the next, with perpetual frustration; the bird is gleefully living life to the fullest. The results are the same: Wile E. somehow manages to dig himself into the hole of failure, while the Road Runner strides on, undeterred and unaffected by life's bumps and obstacles."

Can you imagine the authors conducting their research for this book?

As we move through the book, we learn more about the comparative principles and how to succeed in the Age of the Road Runner. Familiar names populate the pages as we are provided with examples of companies and people. A "Tail Feathers" feature spotlights ordinary people doing extraordinary things-as Road Runners. The stories are inspirational, as well as educational. "Bird Seed" sections furnish the reader with solid advice that fits the concept, but it not linked to the two main characters.

Descriptive summaries of Road Runner cartoon incidents are liberally sprinkled throughout the book, keeping the reader laughing and smiling and wondering in amazement how the coyote could keep going in this futile struggle. And therein lies the tale of this book. To survive in a Road Runner Age, you cannot continue to operate like a coyote. The book is filled with current wisdom, but just as important, it's a fun book to read. People learn more when they're laughing, so expect to gain a lot from Beep! Beep!

This book was a required text for Industrial Espionage - a course that I took at American Military University. It was quite informative on the tactics businesses have used in obtaining business secrets from their rivals - some legally and others, unfortunately, illegally. In our fast-paced and extremely competitive environment, every business leader that wants to protect his or her business secrets ought to expand the number of skills and talents that his or her business employs, by reading this book and understanding the sophisticated tools of the trade of obtaining vital business secrets. This book is a lot more than how spies operate. It doesn't teach one to be a spy. It teaches how to legitimately obtain competitive information that was kept in the vault. The legal side of acquiring such competitive business secrete is called Competitive Intelligence, and the umlawful side is Indistrial Espionage or Economic Espionage. The difference between the two is explicit in Nolan's book. [Nwankama W Nwankama]

Mr Nolan's jockular style of writing takes the reader through all the ins and outs of planning,gathering, and then evaluating competitive intelligence. He has been there,done that and then some and it clearly shows in his very informative tome. He introduces the reader to the intell cycle and then shows exactly how to implement it. I highly recommend this classic.

It's a bit humbling to have an author provide so much common sense in one book. Somehow it seems like I should have learned this from the lessons of life.

Nolan gives clear answers to guide businesses in the process of protecting their proprietary information. It is a must-read for those involved in this work.

The discussion of interviewing skills will be on my list to re-read once a year. It is a valuable resource.

John Nolan has a style that makes this niche teaching book also a great read. With just a small amount of teasing info about his background in government intelligence, he moves directly into skill recognition and honing that will allow CI professionals to expand their tool boxes. Through many case study examples he demonstrates that the techniques he has written about are those he himself has practiced and successfully used.

In addition to my appreciation for his one-liners and clever "winks" to the reader, my favorite part of the book is the full ethic/moral gray-zone discussions and examples the appendices contain.

John Nolan, a 22 year veteran in the intelligence community, has written what I believe is the best book on the subject of competitive intelligence. Most books on competitive intelligence, more commonly known as CI, focus on the collection and analysis of information from online databases, the Internet, company financial reports, etc. Mr. Nolan's expertise however, is in "elicitation." Elicitation is the process of conversing with another person in a non-threatening manner and have that person unintentionally reveal information about themselves or their companies.

The most valuable parts of the book are those sections that cover the elicitation techniques - there are 17 in all according to Mr. Nolan. Readers will gain valuable insight into each of the techniques and how to use them. Mr. Nolan uses clear and concise examples to make his points.

Once the reader becomes expert at using the elicitation techniques, Mr. Nolan shows how to protect information, what to protect, how to protect it and for how long.

Mr. Nolan's book is engagingly written, and above all, useful the day one starts to read it. 'Confidential' describes ethical and legal procedures and processes that, with some practice, yield greater confidence in decisions that must be made 'ahead of the curve.'

Once I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down!

Mark Robinson, author of "Beyond Competitive Intelligence: The Practice of CounterIntelligence and Trade Secrets Protection."

Textbook as described, good shape, no marks or highlights. Quick delivery and good price, thanks! Purchased for class, but really enjoy some of the readings, great collection of authors.

I don't have any complaints. The book was brand new, so of course there were no problems with it. The book was delivered in a timely manner.

I purchased these volumes of the anthology for school and, while I am not generally a fan of reading out of anthologies, this whole set has been very beneficial. I plan on keeping them after I finish the class in order to use them when I become an English teacher. The author introductions are helpful and insightful, providing sufficient background on the writer so that the reader may better understand each story by having a basic knowledge of what the author was experiencing in his or her life. The footnotes areexcellent, giving definitions of archaic words and phrases that might not otherwise be found without extensive search into the customs of the English language. Overall, this was a good purchase, and I will use it often in the future.

Another too thick, too heavy, too expensive textbook anthology of American literature. There're FAR too many selections to cover in a university survey course (which is all these books are good for--no one would read them for pleasure!) and a lot of them are pretty mediocre. When will these dinosaurs collapse under their own weight and some enlightened editors come up with something truly useful, meaningful, and inspiring? No wonder the reading public is is shrinking--these obese anthologies destroy any desire to read and study literature.

The college bookstore was TOO busy this semester. I took a couple of minutes and LOTS OF FAITH in ordering the volumes on-line. This order was shipped and at my home before I could blink!

Wow, I just finished reading it and I really love how he brought together all the elements of the first two books. I wasn't wild on the recaping but the story made up for it.
I'm bit of a junky for alternate earth type stories and this one was pretty good. The story takes place eight years after Vamphyri! with Harry still searching for his wife and son.
The story introduces a few new characters and brings back a few favorites, all leading to the source of all vampires.
I thoroughly enjoy his spin vampire lore. It's a refreshing change to a lot of the stagnate vampire books out there. He takes you to a world where Vampires are allowed to thrive in a unique manner that compels the story along. I really enjoyed it and am actually going to pick up the next books in the series.

After reading Necroscope 2: Vamphyri! I was sceptical about continuing the series. That book had an almost identical climactic finale as the first book in the series! Boy am i glad i took the plunge on The Source as it takes everything that was good about the first 2 books and expands it to a much broader level. This is where it all gets interesting.The potential of what the saga will become takes root in this book. Lumley took the ball and ran with it. His writing style improves from book to book as well. This book is a great thrill ride that had me gasping in anticipation when the lead character entered that strange world for the first time. It's possible to jump right in on this installment, but I highly recommend starting from the beginning so you can take wonder in Lumley's brilliant use of continuity. Lumley is a master of edging the story forward while trteating you to backstory and filling in the areas inbetween. This becomes more evident in the subsequent books in the saga. It kind of reminds me of the formula for the TV show Lost in that regard.

It doesn't matter what book, if it is by Brian Lumley, and it is part of the series you need it. I love every book he has written. They are so good I just wish they would never end. The information in the book is great. The way he words things makes it really easy to picture what your reading. I reccomend this book for anyone who likes reading vampire stuff and Horror, After reading Brian's books no other book has been as good since.

I really enjoyed "Necroscope" (a classic) and "Vamphyri", but this third novel was a disappointment. Most of the exiting elements occur 'offscreen' and are told second-hand; a lot of time is spent on infodumps about the history and geography of the vampire world, which weakened the drama; far too many exclamation points!!! I've heard great things about "Deadspeak" and "Deadspawn", so I will give them a try.

This has been THE best of the Necroscope books and I'm half way through #4. N3 has plenty more action and wierdness in comparison to the other entries in the series. It begins with Soviet E-Branch discovering a portal to another dimension/universe a la STARGATE. Only the portal leads to the origin planet of the Wamphyri!

Jazz Simmons, a British agent is sent--unsuspectingly--to the Perchorsk Project. He learns of a Wamphyri warrior who made it through the portal to the Russian side, where he was immediately burned to cinders in a violent demise. Jazz, the Soviet's enemy, soon finds himself "volunteered" to go through the portal as a Guinea Pig. Prior to being forced through, he learns that others have been banished there ahead of him and there has been no communication from them.

Within, Jazz meets the Travelers, humans constantly on the run from the Wamphyri, who feed on them like cattle. Jazz soon meets up with another esper, Zek Foener, shoved through the portal about a month prior to Jazz. Sparks fly, but the problem is, they learn they cannot return through the same way the came it. Big problem.

Enter Harry Keogh, who is still seeking his missing wife and son. Harry has learned to better control the Mobius continuum and looks for a way out for his friends.

Some real frights in this episode, but Lumley spends too much time on the history and sociology of the Wamphyri and not enough on the truly interesting Perchorsk Project side where the real terror builds. Though billed as the third in a trilogy, this book easily stands alone and could be read without the first two books preceding it. Excellent horror book. Almost perfect.

The primary author's first two books were each sensational in their own way--.I was particularly gripped by his description of the throw-away camara as being unattractive to the high-end camara shops, but when adopted by grocery stores, led to the 90% of the non-consumers of high-end camaras getting into photography. The key: low-cost offering for the non-consumers introduced outside the incumbent arena.

That is the heart of this new book, and the addition of two co-authors suggest that the author's vision is spreading.

I actually read the two chapters on education and health care first--the first because my oldest son blew off his senior year in high school at not worthy of his time, and is now racking up community college credits at very low cost (with the same instructors from the higher cost Geroge Mason University) and is a living embodiment of the education chapters first focus: what matters is not credentialling from the higher end universities, but the low cost acquisition of "just enough just right" learning from key teachers (the brand is shifting from schools to teachers).

Both the education and the health chapters drive home three big points that I find compelling and exciting in the context of C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks):

1. The innovation and profit opportunities are with the non-consumers--the ultimate non-0consumers today are the five billion poor, and especially the 1.5 billion each in China and in India, two countries that have the capability to create call centers for "just enough just in time" learning via cell phone.

2. The keys to health innovation, both in the developed world of one billioin rich and in the undeveloped world of the five billion poor, are:

a. Creating "good enough" solutions that are very low cost and easy to push into remote areas that could not afford high end care; and

b. Pushing innovation down the pyramid from the expensive sites and specialists to the nurse-practitioners and ultimately to the patient themselves; while also moving the diagnostics and the remedies down to the point of care and aware from the hospital "hubs" that are now as antiquated as the airline "hubs" that block point to point travel.

Chapter Ten on "The Future of Telecommunications gave me goose-bumps. No kidding. Thunderclaps and blinding lighting accompanied the third page of this chapter, in part because I have been thinking about Open Spectrum (see David Weinberger's brilliant chapter on this, free online, and also his new book, a sensational new book, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. Althought the chapter focuses priimarily on wireless versus hardline hardware options, and does not mention either the obvious fact that satellites still have too much delay for ubiquitous wireless from outer space (something that should go away in ten years with higher energy pulses), or the other obvious fact, that even wireless is being commoditized and that on demand services and sense-making are the next big offering from the innovators, I found this chapter compelling. Arthur Clarke said long ago that telecommunications should be more or less free as an enabler, and I agree. We need to make both communications and education free to all, and monetize the transactions, the patterns, the early warning, and the aggregate sense-making.

The next most important chapter for me was Chapter 3, "Strategic Choices: Identifying Which Choices Matter." What stuck with me are three things:

1. Start early--don't wait for everyone else to realize the need

2. Hire accordingly. This is HUGE. Most companies have a profile for new employees that is 20 years out of date. Most companies have no clue that Digital Natives are completely different from Digital Immigrants (as one author notes: this is the first generation where the kids are not little version of us--they are a metaphysical transformation well beyond us and anything we can comprehend). Hence, companies have to have the leadership needed to create a "safe" skunkworks where iconoclasts and others who are largely antithetical to the gerbils and drones hired in the past, can innovate without having to deal with the insecurities, ignorance, bad habits, and "rankism" of those trapped in the pyramidal paradigms of the past.

The Appendix provides a summary of key concepts and has some really excellent illustrations that are very helpful. The point within the Appendex that escaped me earlier in the book and was driven home here is that ultimately the innovative firms make investments as a means of learning, not as a means of realizing their pre-conceived notions of what is needed next. I continue to recommend the Business Week cover story of 20 June 2005, "The Power of Us." Innovation, it appears to me, works best when firms both hire and invest to learn, *and* dramatically and deliberately expand the stakeholder circle to embrace the end-user being sought as a customer.

The rest of the book is very worthwhile for those that do not read broadly in the business or innovation leadership.

Other books that I have found as exciting at this one:
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Finally, a book I published with 55 contributors, free online but utterly wonderful in hard-copy from Amazon:
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

My eyes were opened when I read Clayton Christensen's books on disruptive innovation.

In Seeing What's Next, Christensen chastises Wall Street analysts for their inability to see beyond current trends. -- I lived in that world for 10 years and he's right.

Extrapolating future scenarios from current trends is a dangerous business and it seldom works for investors. And it fails miserably as a method for businesses to find the next big thing, which a lot managers try to do. A new framework for analyzing identifying tech trends is needed and Christensen's theories on disruptive innovation are a great starting point, and an inspired way to think about innovation.

The book offers a framework for undertsanding and anticipating trends. This includes a recap of the theory of disruption and has a few chapters that serve as casebook examinations of industries facing disrption, including the telecom sector, higher education and aviation.

While not as strong a book as his earlier work, The Innovator's Solution or the first breakthrough on disruption, The Innovator's Dilemman, Seeing What's Next is a more practical guide for managers. The reason: Christensen, a Harvard professor, allows his theory to evolve from his management consulting activities.

Christensen's two earlier books ("The Innovator's Dilemma," and "The Innovator's Solution") provided great new insights into business history and strategic thinking. "Seeing What's Next" goes on to attempt to demonstrate implementation of these two books' insights, unfortunately with less than total success.

Early in "Seeing What's Next," Christensen uses Dell Computer to illustrate the "Value Chain Evolution" theory's golden rule: Integrate to improve what is "not good enough" (speed, customization, and convenience of PC ordering and acquisition), and outsource what is "more than good enough" (the PC computer's architectural design) - certainly a potentially helpful insight.

"Seeing What's Next" eventually moves on to examining several sectors and making predictions for the future. 1)Education: Christensen sees on-line services from the University of Phoenix (UOP) as an innovation that is likely to disrupt the higher-education market. However, even the UOP has had limited success with this innovation - the vast majority of its services are still provided via bricks-and-mortar classrooms. (Another major UOP problem is that increasing questions are aimed at its credibility - especially the strength of its instructors, and its very low graduation rate.) On the other hand, Christensen probably has it right in seeing community-colleges provide a much greater challenge to pupils currently "over-served" by higher-cost state universities. (This applies to businesses and the general public as well - the vast majority of "research" undertaken at major universities offers very little or no concrete value to society.)

Aviation is another sector examined. Here Christensen sees low-cost Southwest Airlines as in danger of being over-ridden by major airlines - certainly about as far from the ensuing reality as one could get. As for the semiconductor sector - Christensen sees overshot customers (eg. word-processor and spreadsheet users) as becoming vulnerable targets for less expensive/capable processors; again, however, this has been little sign of this. (Christensen's "problem" may be failing to recognize that users want only one operating system/CPU, and that combination should be able to handle most/all existing PC applications. Regardless, it is also noteworthy that Andy Grove, an enthusiastic endorser of Christensen's first two books, does not have an endorsement on this book's back cover.

Healthcare: Christensen observes a "do-it-yourself" trend with home pregnancy tests and glucose monitors. However, both are small components of a relatively trivial healthcare market not likely to sustain major innovation. His third example - cheaper/easier angioplasty replacing cardiac surgery, is an unfortunate one because the latest findings are that angioplasty is not generally an acceptable substitute. Finally, Christensen is totally correct in concluding that many patients are overserved by M.D. providers vs. eg. nurse practitioners - unfortunately, legal constraints are not likely to relax soon in this area. (This also limits "off-shore" provision of X-ray readings, etc., though combining tourism with cheaper Asian healthcare may grow into a much greater market.)

Finally, "Seeing What's Next" considers the wireless communication sector. VOIP is seen as a major challenge - not likely, in my opinion, due to users being physically tied to an on-line computer, and existing wireless providers already able to offer long-distance quite cheaply via national service plans and/or offerings of free calling on weekends and after 7 P.M. during weekdays.

Bottom Line: "Seeing What's Next's" greatest contribution is probably through demonstrating how difficult seeing into the future actually can be.

Just as Michael Porter is the authority on Strategy, Clayton Christensen has become the authority on Innovation. He has not only created a great business theory, he has created an institution that defines our modern understanding of disruptive innovation. The foundations of his business theory are unimpeachable and the illustrations of the theory across industries are appealing to professionals inside and outside the industry alike.

In this book, Christensen's students expand on the theory first proposed in The Innovator's Dilemma to create a framework that can predict whether an innovation might be disruptive (read. has potential to transform an entire industry or create a new one). The impact of understanding and applying this theory is large.

This book maintains the quality level I have come to expect of books published by HBS press, paralleled only by Harper Business. The illustrations in this book include the Telecommunications, Education, Aviation, Semiconductors and Health Care industries. The book dedicates a couple of chapters that are of international interest: Nonmarket Factors and Innovation Overseas. This whets the appetite but does not quench the thirst for more. In the US business environment where global influence is becoming more and more relevant for future growth, it would make sense for a next book in the series focusing entirely on the overseas perspective.

It is hard to pull off a quality job on part three of a sequel without rock-solid grounding. A keen student, I hope to see a lot more come out of Innosight and the institution of Innovation that is Clayton Christensen.

This is certainly a worthwhile read. The concepts are a great mix of grounded theory and in depth information. There are no earth-shattering concepts, or get rich quick schemes, just sound strategy on how to analyze the industry leaders of the future. One concern that is not addressed is how to determine what will be a disruptive innovation and what will be a poor investment. He does encourage readers to look at nonconsumers, and create a product or service that this group would want to consume. However, I can't help but think that behind every failed innovation is a person who thought they had this dialed in. For example, Christensen cites VOIP as likely for cooption by incumbents, and suggests that one way for start ups to prevail is to offer VOIP as a second line. I am in the telecom industry, and do not see this as a viable option. Even he admits that second lines have been in decline for years, but more than that, those that do have second lines are often the most technologically resistant consumers. They are still using dial up or resisting cell phones. The consumers who are likely to use VOIP do not want to add on a second line, they want to replace their landline. This in an example of the idea for disruption still remaining mysterious. However, for those of us whose job it is to navigate the changing environment, not come up with the idea, this book is a must read.

This book was recommended to me by a friend but it was very difficult to find it in Greece. I find it very interesting and well written book.

This elegant and poetic little book offers a new way to look at organization. It is of particular interest to those who work within formal organizations, but the observations apply to all endeavors. The authors suggest that much of what we do to impose order is wasted effort. Life is self-organizing. Life loves organization. Darwinian ideas taught us that only the fittest survive and life is a struggle. New evolutionary theory suggests that the FIT usually survive, and life is cooperative more often than competitive. Most of us learned that symbiosis is an an occasional anomaly in interspecies relations, but the truth is that symbiosis is the norm. Ten percent of a human being (dry weight) is bacteria. We are colonies, not individuals, and life ("As we know it, Bob?" "Yes, Ray. As we know it.") would be impossible without such interdependence. The upshot is that as the highest life form in this sea of cooperation we can relax and expect order instead of disorder. The authors are corporate consultants and tell their clients that businesses, clubs, community groups, and all the other ways we work together, work best if allowed to self organize: Suggest a goal and let the team create solutions. Though the book includes no concrete examples, the picture that sprang to my mind is the team approach to car building used by Saturn and Volvo among others. Provoking photos segue you into and out of the book, and A SIMPLER WAY will remain lurking in the back of your noggin.

Not bad, but the material could have been covered in a magazine article. A few principles repeated until I felt like I was reading some sort of New Age meditative mantra.

I could not put it down! Although an easy ready, it presses us to look at things differently, simply AND deeply. This book relates to all aspects of life and how we interact with each other and the world. How often and quickly we delve into issues without considering the impact of changes (or even suggestion of change). This is a "must read" for business leaders, teachers, politicians, churches and other organizations who so often try force square pegs into round holes in the name of progress and growth. I will read this book again, share with others and will read a lot more of Margaret Wheatley!

Margaret Wheatley is addictive. After reading "Leadership and the New Science" I have bought the rest of her books, and also those that she recommends by contributing a foreword.

This book has a great deal of white space, lots of photos, is double-spaced, but by no means is it simplistic. To play on the title, it is a "simpler way" to absorb the large deep ideas that are documented in "Leadership and the New Science." If her primary writing were a trilogy, this is the entry-level book, "Finding Our Way" is the intermediate volume, and "Leadership" is the graduate course. However, I recommend they be read in reverse order, because the simpler books are more clearly appreciated if one has the deeper background.

What I find most compelling about this book is the manner in which it captures core ideas from a wide variety of works that have been bubbling into human consciousness in the past 20 years. The bibliography is quite good although by no means all-inclusive (missing Kurzweil, E. O. Wilson, and Stephen Wolfham, as well as Tom Atlee and Bill Moyers, among others).

Among the core ideas in this book that are presented with elegance are the absurdity of thinking that life can have a boss--or that rigid ideas and identities will lead to anything other than rigid non-adjustable organizations. The author stresses the value of diversity, passion, connectedness, humanity and humanness, and tieing it all together, the role of information and of ethics as facilitators for "being."

There is a very useful discussion of bacteria and the manner in which human attempts to impose machine and medical solutions are ultimately defeated by bacteria. Although Howard Bloom's "Global Brain" is not in the bibliography, everything the authors discuss here is consistent with his concerns about bacteria winning the inter-species war with humanity.

Taking this a step further, I would contrast this book, and the varied books on collective intelligence, wisdom of the crowd, ecological economics (Herman Daly) and so on, with a book I recently reviewed about the National Security Council, aptly titled "Running the World." The stupidity and arrogance of that title reveals all that we need to know about why U.S. foreign policy is failing, and how desperately we need to take the ideas from this book and apply them to how we manage ourselves and our relationships with other nations, other tribes, other religions, other communities.

In this book, Mary Pipher identifies problems that the American family faces today which are new and different from those faced by previous generations. She states that families are frequently blamed for these cultural problems, but in fact, it is the culture itself which has become the problem, and families are our haven in the storm, our most cherished institution, and our "last great hope". She describes the many ways American culture has changed, such that nowadays, children grow up in a "consumption-oriented, electronic community that is teaching them very different values from those we say we value". She reminds us that a healthy culture is one where its members are free to grow and develop personally and encouraged to work hard for the betterment of others. She describes the destruction of the protective walls around children, and the concurrent destruction of the elevated position of adults in today's "electronic village". Problems today are internal to the family, who struggle to coordinate schedules so they can share a meal together before again heading separate directions. Years ago, the enemies of the family were external, such as poverty, disease, or natural disaster, and were faced bravely when members of each family united to help one another.

The author maintains that psychologists have sometimes done great harm to families under the guise of doing providing good life solutions. She is open and honest about her profession, recognizing that while some are saviors, healers, and teachers to their clients, others irresponsibly or ignorantly dispense wrong advice, causing more pain, strife, and sickness than the clients came in with. Pipher reconnects therapy to responsibility and advises that psychologists apply theories and treatments that are appropriate to the time, place, culture, and personality of the people involved. She reiterates the importance for families to be supported, protected, and validated by professionals, so that by connecting people, in families, extended families, schools, and eventually communities, people's most basic need - love - will be met, and they can then find hope for the future.

She talks about the accountability that comes along with close relationships, those relationships of longevity, where you know the person's family, where they live, where they work, where they worship, and still remember the dog they got in fifth grade. Instead of living life with real people, more people nowadays live fantasy lives, caring more about celebrity marriages than they do the people in their community. She quotes George S. Trow's writing: "We are becoming more childish. We're falling out of the world of history into the world of demographics where we count everything and value nothing." Pipher asserts that the relationship between children and their teachers is not an incidental relationship, but rather is "the central component of their learning". She contends that human development occurs within the context of real relationships, because we learn from those whom we love.

She doesn't just provide us with a laundry list of problems, but also provides solutions at several levels. She provides answers to why the status quo cannot continue, if we really want to make changes for the betterment of society. She then offers strategies for therapists who want to make a significant difference in the outcome for their clients by providing quality family therapy. Furthermore, she shares survival solutions for the lay person who is reading the book. These solutions tell us what essential qualities should be included to ensure that children develop optimally. She expands that idea to talk about connecting families together, and then, to building community.

Reading about her grandparents, the Page family, was delicious. Although it is evident that their lives held hardship as well as joy, they are so real that they seem larger than life. As in everything, Pipher provides practical advice, for example, describing how the Bible gave the family a common well of knowledge and language, as well as providing answers to hard questions about life, making sense of their individual existences in the light of a bigger picture and much larger purpose ordained from above. She also details the values that were reinforced universally at home, at church, and at school, where folks were more concerned about your character than your psyche. Hard work was part of family life, and while physical labor was shared by all, so were the benefits: "calves branded, kraut chopped and put in jars, gardens weeded and hogs butchered". Consumption of goods was regarded to be an undesirable necessity, certainly not a lifestyle. Happiness was not the goal of life, but rather, making a positive contribution of your time, your talents, and doing what was right.

This is such a great book for parents raising children in the modern world to read. With all the messages we get about how easy it is to screw up our kids, this one shows how to set a good foundation. Also good I think for adults trying to heal relationships with their birth families.

I picked up this book after reading the equally important "Reviving Ophelia." "The Shelter of Each Other" is an important guidebook on how to get your family back from the clutches of American junk media, job stress and day care. This book is ungently needed by any parent with factory farmed kids who spend their days with nannies, in day care, and in front of the tube watching garbage videos. But it is equally useful to involved parents who want to be one step ahead of the corrupting and damaging influences of life in America today. Read it and heal.

I expected so much more from the hallowed author of "Reviving Ophelia"! Instead, this book recycles the same old stuff about how this generation of children have no values, and how her generation (of course) was raised on the correct moral fiber. She even goes so far as to lionize both the Victorian Era and the 1950's, quite possibly the two most repressed periods of Western history. Every time she used the phrase, "junk food culture with junk values," I craved a Krispy Kreme and wound up gaining 10 pounds as a direct result of repetitive phraseology. As if decrying the state of any culture's youth is a new concept: I think someone in the Nile delta there may just be a clay tablet with heiroglyphics bemoaning the values of ancient Egypt's youth, their obsession with all the wrong things, and how the previous generation did things SO MUCH BETTER.
And, dear lord, the writing! Almost all of her sentences are ten words long (yes, I counted) which made the prose very stilted and awkward, and the effect was worsened by her insistence on beginning at least one sentence per paragraph with an indefinite article. Ouch. My advice? Look elsewhere for insightful commentary on today's family. Read "The Shelter of Each Other" only if you are looking for confirmation of your own previously-held beliefs on how today's culture is going down the tubes.

This book is absolutely amazing! She hits the nail on the head with this one. I honestly wish this were madatory for all parents to read. It has helped my family so much. I now have happier kids and I am happier myself. I recommend this book to everyone.

Stuart Harts' book is groundbreaking. It discusses on issues united under the umbrella term 'sustainability'. Hart describes those issues in a merciless way, as the gravity of the situation warrants. But he does not lead us into a pessimistic picture of doom. On the contrary, he shows avenues of avenues of hope. In other words, there are things to do to deal with the pressing problems facing the planet and its population.
Those processes towards solutions had better dovetail with the ways in which apparently people apparently satisfy their economic and social interests. Those ways, which could be brought together as 'capitalism', are not without problems of their own; problems which Hart discusses. He also sees the great potential towards improvement hidden within the dynamic of capitalism and makes us contemplate on ways of using that potential in dealing with the challenges of the planet.
Special mention has to be given to Harts' discussion of paradigms he connects with, especially Elkingtons' Triple Bottom Line and Prahalads' Bottom of the Pyramid; approaches which lie at the basis of this book, although Hart goes further.
The encompassing and at the same time practical approach in this book make it valuable reading to all people engaged in business and government, although not only to them.
Joop Remmé / www.knowdialogue.nl

Edited to respect new information I did not have before, and thank the person making the comment. Also adding hot links.

The author, who gives full credit to C.K. Prahalad, has been a co-author with Prahalad and they are both credited with this brilliant vision for a new kind of moral capitalism that addresses the needs of the five billion poor.

This book should be viewed as a valuable distinct contribution in its own right, read read with Prahalad's book as well as a third book from Wharton, The Next Global Stage: The Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World As I edit this, I am also remined of Paul Hawkin's Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, and the forthcoming book by Medard Gabel, Seven Billion Billionaires, with a preview here at Where to find 4 billion new customers: expanding the world's marketplace; Smart companies looking for new growth opportunities should consider broadening ... consultant.: An article from: The Futurist

It also complements Yale Dean Garten's book, The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders which calls on business to be more responsible about the state of the world. All of these books contrast remarkably with William Greider's The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, Clyde Prestowitz's Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions and and John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

The math is quite clear. Business had been focused on high profit margins from the top one billion, with disposable incomes on the order of $20K or so. The bottom of the pyramid, five billion people, with disposable incomes on average of no more than $10 a year, represent a four trillion dollar marketplace.

Where business has gone wrong is in being bureaucratic, immoral, corrupt, and focused on outputs for profit rather than listening for solutions that can be profitable (with low profit margins, very high volume, and transformative effect).

I believe that these two individuals could one day win the Nobel Peace Prize for their work, which could literally save the world. As Jonathan Schell tells us in The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People there are not enough guns on the planet to keep these four billion dispossesed from impacting on us negatively. We can help them create indigenous stabilizing wealth in their home countries, or we can die with them as we all suffer the end of cheap oil, the end of free water, and the rise of pandemic disease.

This author is an extraordinary talent, equal to Prahalad. It merits comment that Wharton appears to have displaced Yale as a phenomenal publishing house. For me to find three world-class books on this topic, and for all of them to be from Wharton, is noteworthy.

The book starts with a overview of the dominant position that is occupied by multinationals in today's global economy. Going by the definition of the term, 60000 multinationals produce a quarter of the global output of products and services. Yet they are owned by less that 1 percent of the worlds population and employ about 1 percent of the world's employable workforce. Meanwhile many of these companies in their race for short term earnings have sacrificed sustainable methods of production. In other words they have done irreparable damage to the earth's environment and created social tensions in many countries. In other words, the pursuit of economic gains is at loggerheads with local cultures and environmental interests.

Then comes the interesting hypothesis termed "The Great trade-off illusion". Earlier companies believed that a certain amount of pollution for example was inevitable and any efforts for its reduction will incur expenses for treatment. This is called "end of the pipeline approach" for treating pollutants. Similarly, large companies serving the top 800 million population of the earth's population adopted similar business models and products across countries and cultures. Two thirds of the population was ignored since it was perceived that this huge segment just cannot afford the goods and services offered by the multinationals.

The author offers a radical approach and introduces the concept of "Triple Bottom-line". How can companies win by offering goods and services that are culturally appropriate, environmentally sustainable and economically profitable. This is not wish or ivory tower theory, but a necessity and practically feasible path argues the author.

To serve the base of the pyramid (BOP) population, companies need to adopt disruptive technologies, incubate them in the BOP markets with appropriate functionality and price points. This also needs innovative business models. One should not look at what is bad ( corruption) or what is missing ( western style institutions) in the BOP segment, but understand and serve their needs through innovative products and services through appropriate business processes.

This is essentially a combination of Prof. Clayton Christensen's disruptive innovations ( The Innovator's Dilemma) and the concept of BOP ( The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid - C.K. Prahalad ).

In my opinion the main take away in terms of an excellent framework for business strategy is the concept of "Sustainable Value Portfolio". Defining the Organization's internal capabilities and external constituencies on the horizontal axis, and managing today's business and tomorrow's business opportunity on the vertical axis, we get four quadrants on which companies can operate. Companies typically operate only on the quadrant of internal capabilities and today's business. This is an approach of incremental improvements and greening. The other quadrant below the horizontal axis is the concept of "extended supplier responsibility" or Product Stewardship taking full responsibility for the product including its recycling, in close interaction with existing customers.

To win in tomorrows world, companies need to operate in and fully leverage on internal capabilities to introduce successful disruptive technologies that can cater to the needs of the un-served four billion population( that will grow to about 8 billion by 2050), or B24B, in a manner that is environmentally sustainable. Companies that understand all the four quadrants well and progressively plan their product portfolio are the winners of tomorrow.

Take the automobile industry for example. The author clearly brings out that till the 1970's this industry produced vehicles that polluted the planet with total disregard to fuel efficiencies. Then the focus shifted to emission norms and recycling of used automobiles. A huge opportunity awaits this sector in exploiting disruptive technologies like hydrogen fuel cells and simultaneously use such technologies to offer low cost transportation in countries like India and China.

The book then gets into a detailed discussion on the BOP realities and the right business models to serve this huge market.

A classic by any account, I personally rate it as one amongst the top 10 business books on my bookshelf. One can feel the author's sense of commitment, deep understanding of and a passion for the topic in every page of the book.

This interesting and provocative book synthesizes several of the most influential ideas in modern business and distills a new idea: that disruptive innovation at the bottom of the pyramid will solve the crises of environmental pollution, business stagnation and international terrorism at the top. No one can accuse author Stuart L. Hart of thinking small or of lacking imagination. His big ideas are all in place. The only missing element, as he freely admits, is one small detail: how. Capitalism must take a new course, and it's pretty clear what the new course must be, but Hart presents only a vague notion of how businesspeople are to go about turning his vision into reality. We recommend that business leaders read this book anyway, because it will stimulate your thinking about what might be possible. Maybe you'll be the one to figure out how to make the difference.

Stuart Hart is an author, instructor, researcher, and lecturer who has written many books and essays on strategic management and the problems/challenges of globalism in the world economy. His consulting services have been utilized by many large companies including DuPont, Hewlett- Packard, and Proctor and Gamble and he has helped these and other companies like them to develop a more Earth- friendly, poverty- reducing approach to solving the world's problems while still maintaining enough economic momentum to stabilize or even improve the bottom line.

The primary focus of this book is the important task that businesses face in the twenty- first century; namely, the task of expanding the world economy, helping third world nations emerge from poverty, and improving the environment. To many, this idea of companies helping other nations, promoting recycling and environmentally sound business practices, and making a profit seems to be one big contradiction. When most people think of business, we think of the bottom- line goal of earning a profit by whatever means necessary; everything else be damned. But like Hart points out, the reality of environmental issues is too important and too critical for business to ignore. And if the right steps are taken, businesses can not only improve the world and its people, they can also reap profits and other rewards in the process. Thus, not only is it the right direction to take morally, it is also the right direction to take financially and if companies move quickly they can establish themselves as leaders in the global marketplace and enjoy the many benefits that their initiative will bring.

Globalism has been one of the most heated topics in economic discussion groups in the past ten to fifteen years. Proponents of globalism feel that it is the best way to spread prosperity all over the world and eradicate a large number of the world's poor. Opponents, however, have been very vocal in their opposition to globalism, citing many key areas where they feel the earth and its people are worse off when large companies expand to other nations. These activists feel that globalism depletes the world's resources at a faster rate; leads to deployment of "sweatshops" and other inhumane treatment of workers; and does little if anything to alleviate the problems of economic distress, inadequate health care, and the like. But like Hart demonstrates in this book, the pro- globalists and the anti- globalists can and must work together to solve these problems. And he feels that private businesses can make this happen by utilizing present technologies that will produce more abundant goods and services, improve standards of living, and leave the environment unaffected and possibly even better than it was before. Hart is a strong believer that much good can be accomplished if companies will simply change their strategy and embrace the idea of global environmentalism and responsibility. New growth areas exist all over the planet and by integrating some of the new technologies with profitable solutions, companies can make money and make a name for themselves as corporate citizens on a world- wide scale.

Much of what this book talks about seems reasonable now that I have finished it, but I admit that I was a little skeptical at first. How, I wondered, could a company implement all of these changes, pay good wages to foreign workers, protect the environment, and still make a profit? It seems like a very expensive proposition but like the author demonstrates, it really isn't a far fetched idea at all. We have to remember that much of the population of the world lives in conditions that are almost completely devoid of any use of modern technologies. Introducing these technologies can improve productivity drastically- so much so, in fact, that it will easily negate the initial expense of establishing the technology in the first place. One example stated in the book is that of Grameen Phone and Grameen Telecom- two businesses that helped establish a cellular phone network in Bangladesh. Money was loaned to women living in the poverty- stricken rural villages so that they could become private entrepreneurs to sell mobile phone service. The loan money was used to purchase a cell phone and a solar recharging unit and the women were then trained and sent out to sell this service. This business venture has proven to be a great success, profitable in many ways. It has raised many people out of poverty, extended modern technology to people who don't normally have this luxury, and protected the environment through the inclusion of solar charging units. All of this was possible simply because a company was willing to take a chance, grant loans, and extend a useful service to a class of people who would never be able to afford cellular phone service using existing business models.

Most of the information presented in this book deals with spreading economic success to the billions of people in the world who occupy the bottom levels of the economic pyramid but what the author talks about can easily apply to other situations as well. Corporate stewardship and environmental responsibility are admirable goals for a company of any size regardless of whether its customers are economically well- off or financially strapped. Hart concentrates mostly on the problems of the third world because it is here that most opportunity exists and where most of the challenges lie. But much of what he talks about could be applied to anyone, including those at the top of the economic pyramid who consume a large amount of resources with little regard for economic or environmental consequences.

I like the way Hart writes this book. It is well- organized with boldface text to break up different topics/subtopics and with notes at the end of each chapter. I also admire the sense of optimism. Hart is convinced that this approach is not only the right thing to do, it is imperative that corporations take action immediately and if they do so and do it right, they will easily reap the benefits. The old ideas that profit is the number one priority, that humans are disposable components of any business, and that the environment is the concern of governments have all become outdated in the modern world economy.

Overall, Capitalism at the Crossroads is a very good book about business and its critical role in shaping the world economy. Conventional wisdom about what works and what doesn't needs to be tossed aside in favor of (as the author refers to them) "disruptive technologies"- business models that go completely against the established way of doing things and present a fresh perspective tailored to the needs of specific people and cultures that protects the environment and still earns a profit. All of this is possible, and Hart feels it is very important that these large, multi- national corporations wake up and adapt to the new world economy. It is not only economically profitable, it is a necessary part of economic sustainability and world stability.

The bottom line of this book could be summed up as follows: Companies that help other people and protect the environment will be rewarded in many ways, including bottom- line profit, improved living conditions, and a better environment for all. Capitalism is at an important crossroad and the path taken needs to be the one that promotes responsible corporate growth for the good of all.