What do you think?
Rate this book
Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out
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. 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. Indeed, for all their talk about innovation, most companies today are still scared to death of it. To Douglas Rushkoff , 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. 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. 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. "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." 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.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2005
18 people are currently reading
395 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Rushkoff
107 books996 followersDouglas Rushkoff is a New York-based writer, columnist and lecturer on technology, media and popular culture.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 9, 2015
Douglas Rushkoff's business advice book focusses on a central theme that business spend too much time and energy trying to solve their problems by doing other unexpected things rather than just doubling down on doing their core business well.
The book starts well, with a thumbnail sketch of a bad business book - disaster, solution, case study, case study, repeat ad nauseam. This opening immediately disposed me well to the book because I have read and failed to respect or enjoy several books in that format. Sadly, rushkoff doesn't truly escape the problem he describes - ultimately he is a consultant too, and a big part of his book are case-study like anecdotes and a proposal for how to do things differently.
It is immediately evident from the text that Rushkoff is an engaging, interesting person and probably a compelling public speaker. He is able to connect together disparate themes and ideas, deploy insightful (or insightful-sounding) thoughts and tell engaging stories about situations. There's a lot to enjoy about the way this book is written, and quite a few interesting anecdotes spread throughout it.
Though this book was written in 2005, one of the most refreshing things about it is that Rushkoff is an information-age writer, and so has an instinctive grasp of the societal changes being wrought by technology and the broader and deeper changes being driven by them. Compared to other business books I really liked this aspect.
Unfortunately, Rushkoff doesn't hit home with the core of his argument. He is certainly able to talk in depth about situations where a business failed to remain focused on their core business, and suffered as a result. He doesn't seem to look very hard for situations that disprove his thesis, suffering from the same evidentiary selectivity that he rightly criticises focus groups for suffering from. And he even walks right past quite obvious holes in his argument. He chides Polaroid for losing sight of their core competency, but it is very clear that this business was for sure going away, so they had to move at least a bit outside of their shrinking box.
He is also much better at raising interesting issues than he is at connecting them back to his topic. He raises the energy industry as an example, and is lavish with his praise and criticism of past actions. But when it comes to describing an alternative path all he has are empty metaphors and truisms ("redesigning things from the inside out"). Similarly, he raises open source as a key value - because he thinks competition is overrated vs cooperation. But he uses Costco as an example of open source (vs Wal Mart). Costco does a lot to be impressed by, but I think it's hard to classify their advantage as Open Source collaboration.
He writes a bit about Microsoft and Google. [I work for Microsoft, potential-bias-declaration]. He gets some facts wrong, and I think this is not his strongest topic in support of his major thesis, since Microsoft seems a lot more in-the-box than Google even though Google seems to have indeed succeeded in some of the out-of-the-box ways he describes. But what I found most telling about this section is how he gave Google credit for being open source and collaborative when, even in 2005 they were very competitive and all their core search assets were closed source. I think Rushkoff only knows about some problems from the outside, and isn't quite sceptical enough of his sources.
I have one final example of the unsatisfying nature of this book. He writes a longish section on the troubling history of Details magazine - founded and successful in one category, then bought by Conde Nast and subjected to a sequence of editors and editorial directions none of which worked, before being sold again to another company who after a couple more tries finally made it a success. Details starts out gay-friendly, then as told by Rushkoff tries on various personas - fashionable, general-interest (like GQ), bloke-ish (like Maxim), and more before returning to its gay roots for success. The problem with Rushkoffs interesting story is that looking on, it is really hard to see which of these is 'inside the box'. At one level the return to roots is inside that box. At another, the wilful copying of the most successful titles is very much inside a box too, especially as they hire staff from those other titles. There is no convincing conclusion I can draw from this story, except that the second publisher had less ambitious goals and was satisfied with 500000 readers.
Overall, Rushkoff's book is engaging but not satisfying. It is a reminder of a good adage, without any useful guidance on how or when to apply it. It is full of good stories, but not good conclusions. While it is moderately interesting, but I cannot recommend it to anyone who actually wants business advice. There are better ways to spend your time.
The book starts well, with a thumbnail sketch of a bad business book - disaster, solution, case study, case study, repeat ad nauseam. This opening immediately disposed me well to the book because I have read and failed to respect or enjoy several books in that format. Sadly, rushkoff doesn't truly escape the problem he describes - ultimately he is a consultant too, and a big part of his book are case-study like anecdotes and a proposal for how to do things differently.
It is immediately evident from the text that Rushkoff is an engaging, interesting person and probably a compelling public speaker. He is able to connect together disparate themes and ideas, deploy insightful (or insightful-sounding) thoughts and tell engaging stories about situations. There's a lot to enjoy about the way this book is written, and quite a few interesting anecdotes spread throughout it.
Though this book was written in 2005, one of the most refreshing things about it is that Rushkoff is an information-age writer, and so has an instinctive grasp of the societal changes being wrought by technology and the broader and deeper changes being driven by them. Compared to other business books I really liked this aspect.
Unfortunately, Rushkoff doesn't hit home with the core of his argument. He is certainly able to talk in depth about situations where a business failed to remain focused on their core business, and suffered as a result. He doesn't seem to look very hard for situations that disprove his thesis, suffering from the same evidentiary selectivity that he rightly criticises focus groups for suffering from. And he even walks right past quite obvious holes in his argument. He chides Polaroid for losing sight of their core competency, but it is very clear that this business was for sure going away, so they had to move at least a bit outside of their shrinking box.
He is also much better at raising interesting issues than he is at connecting them back to his topic. He raises the energy industry as an example, and is lavish with his praise and criticism of past actions. But when it comes to describing an alternative path all he has are empty metaphors and truisms ("redesigning things from the inside out"). Similarly, he raises open source as a key value - because he thinks competition is overrated vs cooperation. But he uses Costco as an example of open source (vs Wal Mart). Costco does a lot to be impressed by, but I think it's hard to classify their advantage as Open Source collaboration.
He writes a bit about Microsoft and Google. [I work for Microsoft, potential-bias-declaration]. He gets some facts wrong, and I think this is not his strongest topic in support of his major thesis, since Microsoft seems a lot more in-the-box than Google even though Google seems to have indeed succeeded in some of the out-of-the-box ways he describes. But what I found most telling about this section is how he gave Google credit for being open source and collaborative when, even in 2005 they were very competitive and all their core search assets were closed source. I think Rushkoff only knows about some problems from the outside, and isn't quite sceptical enough of his sources.
I have one final example of the unsatisfying nature of this book. He writes a longish section on the troubling history of Details magazine - founded and successful in one category, then bought by Conde Nast and subjected to a sequence of editors and editorial directions none of which worked, before being sold again to another company who after a couple more tries finally made it a success. Details starts out gay-friendly, then as told by Rushkoff tries on various personas - fashionable, general-interest (like GQ), bloke-ish (like Maxim), and more before returning to its gay roots for success. The problem with Rushkoffs interesting story is that looking on, it is really hard to see which of these is 'inside the box'. At one level the return to roots is inside that box. At another, the wilful copying of the most successful titles is very much inside a box too, especially as they hire staff from those other titles. There is no convincing conclusion I can draw from this story, except that the second publisher had less ambitious goals and was satisfied with 500000 readers.
Overall, Rushkoff's book is engaging but not satisfying. It is a reminder of a good adage, without any useful guidance on how or when to apply it. It is full of good stories, but not good conclusions. While it is moderately interesting, but I cannot recommend it to anyone who actually wants business advice. There are better ways to spend your time.
December 11, 2008
The title caught my interest because it runs contrary to conventional wisdom. Companies can stray so outside their core competencies that they loose them altogether. Rushkoff sort of comes off like a Zen master of business strategy, but that is fine. The book is pretty diverse in its topics while also tying them together. It also tightly wraps up concepts of multiple business books without having to devote and entire book to them. I really enjoyed it. I know it has shaped my thinking on since reading it. Some memorable chapters: Open Source Everything, design everything to be fun (The Plays the Thing).
September 30, 2019
Unconvinced. The book never pulled me in, got me to believe in ineffective startup culture, or left me with much to chew on.
The positives tho were lines like this: “if you are the entrepreneur who moved the vcr from its own box to the bottom of the cube tv, then you need to go back to bed”
The positives tho were lines like this: “if you are the entrepreneur who moved the vcr from its own box to the bottom of the cube tv, then you need to go back to bed”
December 30, 2020
Stimulating, and brimming with insights and ideas.
April 4, 2011
This was a really good book with a lot depth and a lot of great ideas. Unfortunately, it just doesn't feel like enough people are "getting back in the box." As we have become a society that is absurdly wrapped up in the "me" attitude, our creativity, happiness, and sense of self has become distorted and dull. Too many people still operate by the us-versus-them mentality, too many people define themselves through their materialistic gains and their individual successes. Douglas Rushkoff explores how this has had a negative impact on business sectors and on humanity in general. Rushkoff demands the emergence of a new renaissance person--a person who defines himself "not by his abilities, worth, or possessions, but by his connections to others."
October 7, 2007
Reminded me of the way we should live our lives, and how the next wave of business should be run. Of why social entrepreneurship etc is so profitable. etc.
first chapters were harder to get through, but the rest feels great.
I've heard many ideas before, but it's put together in an interesting way.
first chapters were harder to get through, but the rest feels great.
I've heard many ideas before, but it's put together in an interesting way.
March 25, 2013
I can't think of anybody who shouldn't read this book. As someone who spends most of his time outside the box I wish everyone else would get back in it and sort it out rather than trying to be with me!
December 18, 2007
Advise on how to flourish in the ongoing renaissance.
November 17, 2008
A fun book with views on how companies go wrong when they try to be something they are not.
September 17, 2012
Rushkoff wants us to know how we great we can be, if we only learn to know ourselves. As always, the writing is fast, fun and a great balance of readable and informative. Optimistic and inspiring.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews