The goal of the book is to share the techniques of the best companies. This book is aimed primarily at Product Managers working on technology-powered products. That includes the hundreds of "tech companies" like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and the like, as well as the thousands of companies moving to leverage technology (financial companies, media companies, retailers, manufacturers, nearly every industry). Inspired covers companies from early stage start-ups to large, established companies. The products might be consumer products or devices, business services for small businesses to enterprises, internal tools, and developer platforms.Inspired is secondarily aimed at the designers, engineers, user researchers and data scientists that work closely with the product managers on product teams at these same companies.

    "We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing." So says Laszlo Bock, head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge. This insight is the heart of WORK RULES!, a compelling and surprisingly playful manifesto that offers lessons including:Take away managers' power over employeesLearn from your best employees-and your worstHire only people who are smarter than you are, no matter how long it takes to find themPay unfairly (it's more fair!)Don't trust your gut: Use data to predict and shape the futureDefault to open-be transparent and welcome feedbackIf you're comfortable with the amount of freedom you've given your employees, you haven't gone far enough. Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound grasp of human psychology, WORK RULES! also provides teaching examples from a range of industries-including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are easy to put into action, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands. WORK RULES! shows how to strike a balance between creativity and structure, leading to success you can measure in quality of life as well as market share. Read it to build a better company from within rather than from above; read it to reawaken your joy in what you do.

    Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. Just about everyone is wrong. For all that's been written about the Four over the last two decades, no one has captured their power and staggering success as insightfully as Scott Galloway.Instead of buying the myths these compa-nies broadcast, Galloway asks fundamental questions. How did the Four infiltrate our lives so completely that they're almost impossible to avoid (or boycott)? Why does the stock market forgive them for sins that would destroy other firms? And as they race to become the world's first trillion-dollar company, can anyone chal-lenge them?In the same irreverent style that has made him one of the world's most celebrated business professors, Galloway deconstructs the strategies of the Four that lurk beneath their shiny veneers. He shows how they manipulate the fundamental emotional needs that have driven us since our ancestors lived in caves, at a speed and scope others can't match. And he reveals how you can apply the lessons of their ascent to your own business or career.Whether you want to compete with them, do business with them, or simply live in the world they dominate, you need to understand the Four.

    But in many organizations, returns from IT investments are flatlining, even as technology spending has skyrocketed.These challenges call for new levels of IT savvy: the ability of all managers-IT or non-IT-to transform their company's technology assets into operational efficiencies that boost margins. Companies with IT-savvy managers are 20 percent more profitable than their competitors.In IT Savvy, Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross-two of the world's foremost authorities on using IT in business-explain how non-IT executives can acquire this savvy. Concise and practical, the book describes the practices, competencies, and leadership skills non-IT managers need to succeed in the digital economy. You'll discover how to:-Define your firm's operating model-how IT can help you do business-Revamp your IT funding model to support your operating model-Build a digitized platform of business processes, IT systems, and data to execute on the model-Determine IT decision rights-Extract more business value from your IT assetsPacked with examples and based on research into eighteen hundred organizations in more than sixty countries, IT Savvy is required reading for non-IT managers seeking to push their company's performance to new heights.

    It seems hard to believe today, but there was a time when Airbnb was the best-kept secret of travel hackers and couch surfers, Pinterest was a niche web site frequented only by bakers and crafters, LinkedIn was an exclusive network for C-suite executives and top-level recruiters, Facebook was MySpace's sorry step-brother, and Uber was a scrappy upstart that didn't stand a chance against the Goliath that was New York City Yellow Cabs.So how did these companies grow from these humble beginnings into the powerhouses they are today? Contrary to popular belief, they didn't explode to massive worldwide popularity simply by building a great product then crossing their fingers and hoping it would catch on. There was a studied, carefully implemented methodology behind these companies' extraordinary rise. That methodology is called Growth Hacking, and it's practitioners include not just today's hottest start-ups, but also companies like IBM, Walmart, and Microsoft as well as the millions of entrepreneurs, marketers, managers and executives who make up the community of GrowthHackers.com.Think of the Growth Hacking methodology as doing for market-share growth what Lean Start-Up did for product development, and Scrum did for productivity. It involves cross-functional teams and rapid-tempo testing and iteration that focuses customers attaining them, retaining them, engaging them, and motivating them to come back and buy more. An accessible and practical toolkit that teams and companies in all industries can use to increase their customer base and market share, this book walks readers through the process of creating and executing their own custom-made growth hacking strategy. It is a must read for any marketer, entrepreneur, innovator or manger looking to replace wasteful big bets and "spaghetti-on-the-wall" approaches with more consistent, replicable, cost-effective, and data-driven results.

    Friendships and relationships can suffer. Bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin. The Founder's Dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team.Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them. He looks at whether it is a good idea to cofound with friends or relatives, how and when to split the equity within the founding team, and how to recognize when a successful founder-CEO should exit or be fired. Wasserman explains how to anticipate, avoid, or recover from disastrous mistakes that can splinter a founding team, strip founders of control, and leave founders without a financial payoff for their hard work and innovative ideas. He highlights the need at each step to strike a careful balance between controlling the startup and attracting the best resources to grow it, and demonstrates why the easy short-term choice is often the most perilous in the long term. The Founder's Dilemmas draws on the inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, while mining quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders.People problems are the leading cause of failure in startups. This book offers solutions.

    Based on numerous interviews, this book reveals exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers, and is handling the transition into the post Jobs era.

    Their days are defined by a relentless barrage of incoming messages and back-and-forth digital conversations--a state of constant, anxious chatter in which nobody can disconnect, and so nobody has the cognitive bandwidth to perform substantive work. There was a time when tools like email felt cutting edge, but a thorough review of current evidence reveals that the hyperactive hive mind workflow they helped create has become a productivity disaster, reducing profitability and perhaps even slowing overall economic growth. Equally worrisome, it makes us miserable. Humans are simply not wired for constant digital communication.We have become so used to an inbox-driven workday that it's hard to imagine alternatives. But they do exist. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, author and computer science professor Cal Newport makes the case that our current approach to work is broken, then lays out a series of principles and concrete instructions for fixing it. In A World without Email, he argues for a workplace in which clear processes--not haphazard messaging--define how tasks are identified, assigned and reviewed. Each person works on fewer things (but does them better), and aggressive investment in support reduces the ever-increasing burden of administrative tasks. Above all else, important communication is streamlined, and inboxes and chat channels are no longer central to how work unfolds.The knowledge sector's evolution beyond the hyperactive hive mind is inevitable. The question is not whether a world without email is coming (it is), but whether you'll be ahead of this trend. If you're a CEO seeking a competitive edge, an entrepreneur convinced your productivity could be higher, or an employee exhausted by your inbox, A World Without Email will convince you that the time has come for bold changes, and will walk you through exactly how to make them happen.

    Why? Because it presents the blueprint for scaling growth in emerging markets, and importing low-cost and high impact innovations to mature ones.Innovation is no longer the exclusive domain of the Silicon Valley elite. Reverse Innovation will open your eyes to the fact that the dynamics of global innovation are changing—and if you want your firm to survive, you’d better pay attention. The gap between rich nations and emerging economies is closing. No longer will innovations travel the globe in only one direction, from developed to developing nations. They will also flow in reverse. CEOs of the world’s most influential companies agree and have cited Reverse Innovation as their playbook for the next generation of global growth. Authors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth explain where, when, and why reverse innovation is on the rise and why the implications are so profound. Learn how to make innovation in emerging markets happen and how such innovations can unlock even greater opportunity throughout the world. You’ll follow some of the world’s leading companies (including GE, Deere & Company, P&G, and PepsiCo) through stories that illustrate exactly what works and what doesn’t.If you’re in a Western economy, you need to accept that the future lies far from home. But the idea is not just for Western audiences. If innovation is at the heart of your company or your career, no matter where you practice business, Reverse Innovation is a phenomenon you need to understand. This book will help you do that.

    But it's also the subject of seemingly endless hype. Yes, social tools allow us to do things entirely differently--but how do you really capitalize on that? In "11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era," the newest in Harvard Business Review's line of digital books (HBR Singles), social strategist and insightful blogger Nilofer Merchant argues that "social" is much more than "media." Smart companies are letting social become the backbone of their business models, increasing their speed and flexibility by pursuing openness and fluidity. These organizations don't operate like the powerful "800-pound gorillas" of yesteryear--but instead act more like a herd of 800 gazelles, moving together across a savannah, outrunning the competition. This ebook offers new rules for creating value, leading, and innovating in our rapidly changing world. These social era rules are both provocative and grounded in reality--they cover thorny challenges like forsaking hierarchy and control for collaboration; getting the most out of all talent; allowing your customers to become co-creators in your organization; inspiring employees through purpose in a world where money alone no longer wields that power; and soliciting community investment in an idea so that it can take hold and grow. The strategies of the Industrial Era--or even the Information Age--will not be enough for the Social Era. Read "11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era" to get ready to meet the challenges of this new age and thrive.

    At under 200 pages it's quick reading too. Makes a great airplane book.

    Business Model You uses the same powerful one-page tool to teach readers how to draw "personal business models," which reveal new ways their skills can be adapted to the changing needs of the marketplace to reveal new, more satisfying, career and life possibilities. Produced by the same team that created Business Model Generation, this book is based on the Business Model Canvas methodology, which has quickly emerged as the world's leading business model description and innovation technique.This book shows readers how to:Understand business model thinking and diagram their current personal business model Understand the value of their skills in the marketplace and define their purpose Articulate a vision for change Create a new personal business model harmonized with that vision, and most important, test and implement the new model When you implement the one-page tool from Business Model You, you create a game-changing business model for your life and career.

    The findings will surprise many readers and, quite frankly, upset others.The ChallengeBuilt to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The StudyFor years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?The StandardsUsing tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The ComparisonsThe research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? The FindingsThe findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

    It:Incorporates the "Business Model Canvas" as the organizing principle for startup hypothesesProvides separate paths and advice for web/mobile products versus physical productsOffers a wealth of detailed instruction on how to get, keep, and grow customers recognizing the different techniques for web and physical channelsAnd teaches a "new math" for startups: "metrics that matter for fueling growth"The Startup Owner's Manual is a step-by-step, near-encyclopedic reference manual or "how to" for building a successful, scalable startup. Want to know what to do the first, week, month or year?What's the right distribution channel for your product?How to get traffic to your web site? …and how to activate customers or users on arrival?Who are the right "first customers," and why? …plus many more great tips in nearly 500 pages, complete with index, glossary, and Customer Development ChecklistsIt's the indispensible reference guide for any startup founder, entrepreneur, investor or educator.

    Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone. In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.