false 888133 3 <p>On a landscape that seems to be transforming itself with every new technology, marketing tactic, or investment strategy, businesses rush to embrace change by trading in their competencies or shifting their focus altogether. All in the name of innovation.</p> <p>But this endless worrying, wriggling, and trend watching only alienates companies from whatever it is they really do best. In the midst of the headlong rush to think "outside the box," the full engagement responsible for true innovation is lost. New consultants, new packaging, new marketing schemes, or even new CEOs are no substitute for the evolution of our own expertise as individuals and as businesses.</p> <p>Indeed, for all their talk about innovation, most companies today are still scared to death of it.</p> <p>To <b>Douglas Rushkoff</b>, this disconnect is not only predictable but welcome. It marks the happy end of a business cycle that began as long ago as the Renaissance, and ended with the renaissance in creativity and collaboration we're going through today.</p> <p>The age of mass production, mass media, and mass marketing may be over, but so, too, is the alienation it engendered between producers and consumers, managers and employees, executives and shareholders, and, worst of all, businesses and their own core values and competencies.</p> <p>American enterprise, in particular, is at a crossroads. Having for too long replaced innovation with acquisitions, tactics, efficiencies, and ad campaigns, many businesses have dangerously lost touch with the process -- and fun -- of discovery.</p> <p>"American companies are obsessed with window dressing," Rushkoff writes, "because they're reluctant, no, afraid to look at whatever it is they really do and evaluate it from the inside out. When things are down, CEOs look to consultants and marketers to rethink, rebrand, or repackage whatever it is they are selling, when they should be getting back on the factory floor, into the stores, or out to the research labs where their product is actually made, sold, or conceived."</p> <p>Rushkoff backs up his arguments with a myriad of intriguing historical examples as well as familiar gut checks -- from the dumbwaiter and open source to Volkswagen and The Gap -- in this accessible, thought-provoking, and immediately applicable set of insights. Here's all the help innovators of this era need to reconnect with their own core competencies as well as the passion fueling them.</p> 873382 1 12 2005 Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out total:40|5:14|4:14|3:8|2:3|1:1| 40 157 82 5 5 2 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Jul 16 20:10:12 -0700 2007 Wed Dec 10 23:59:49 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 18:18:06 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 18:26:37 -0700 2008
OK, O...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 15 22:57:07 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 06 23:46:05 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 06 23:49:22 -0700 2007
first chapters were harder to get through, but the rest feels great.

I've heard many ideas before, but it's put together ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Nov 16 16:15:59 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 16:17:50 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Dec 18 14:30:01 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 18 14:30:01 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Fri Nov 13 19:30:14 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 19:30:14 -0800 2009 0 0 true false Thu Oct 29 21:35:15 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 21:35:33 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 20 18:17:06 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 18:17:06 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Oct 09 13:41:49 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 13:41:49 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Tue Sep 29 12:39:44 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 12:39:44 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Sep 28 22:11:57 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 20:43:44 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Sep 24 07:51:17 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 24 07:51:17 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Sep 03 17:39:26 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 17:39:26 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Sun Aug 16 16:55:50 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 16:55:50 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun Aug 09 18:01:07 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 09 18:01:07 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jul 21 10:55:56 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 10:55:56 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Mon Jul 13 09:00:54 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 09:00:54 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Aug 30 12:05:33 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 10:47:35 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 12:05:33 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jul 11 12:24:19 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 12:24:19 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri May 29 16:10:17 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 16:10:37 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=190011