Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game—changing innovation like Apple's iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make genuine efforts to be innovative—they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results.
Why? In *The Design of Business*, Roger Martin offers a compelling and provocative answer: we rely far too exclusively on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo.
To innovate and win, companies need design thinking. This form of thinking is rooted in how knowledge advances from one stage to another—from mystery (something we can't explain) to heuristic (a rule of thumb that guides us toward solution) to algorithm (a predictable formula for producing an answer) to code (when the formula becomes so predictable it can be fully automated). As knowledge advances across the stages, productivity grows and costs drop-creating massive value for companies.
Martin shows how leading companies such as Procter & Gamble, Cirque du Soleil, RIM, and others use design thinking to push knowledge through the stages in ways that produce breakthrough innovations and competitive advantage.
Filled with deep insights and fresh perspectives, *The Design of Business* reveals the true foundation of successful, profitable innovation. Views: 511
How to Run a Resort: Make ure employees arrive on time with a positive attitude. (check) Remember that the customer is always ight. (check) Keep your boyfriend and your most valuable guest from trying to kill each other. (oops) Celeste Tippen can't imagine a more perfect summer. Her boyfriend, Travis, has a job at her family's resort, which means lots of quality couple time. Unfortunately, she forgot about Nick Saunders, the hot son of the resort's wealthiest customers. Every year, Nick flirts with Celeste, and apparently this year is no different, despite the boyfriend who's watching their every move. She assures Travis that hanging out with the resident bad boy is the last thing she wants to do. If only she believed that herself. . . . About the AuthorHailey Abbott grew up in Southern California, where she split her time between creative writing and creative beaching. She is the author of Getting Lost with Boys, The Secrets of Boys, The Perfect Boy, Waking Up to Boys, The Forbidden Boy, and The Other Boy well as the Summer Boys books and The Bridesmaid. Hailey now lives in New York City. Views: 510
Introduced by Gordon Jarvie. Distinguished by irony, compassion and the author’s own dry wit, these three novels paint a memorable picture of life in the streets, schools and tenements of Glasgow in the 1950s and 60s. With a unique vision of loneliness, old age, sexual longing, hot young blood and youth’s casual cruelty, George Friel’s books explore a dark comedy of tangled communication, human need and fading community. All these elements come together in the humorous parable of greed, religion and slum youth that is The Boy Who Wanted Peace; in the fate of old and disturbed Miss Partridge who is obsessed with the innocence of young Grace; and in the mental collapse of Mr Alfred, a middle-aged school teacher who is in love with one of his pupils. The humour, realism and moral concern of Friel’s work clearly anticipate and stand alongside the novels of Alan Spence, Alasdair Gray, William McIlvanney and James Kelman. ‘George Friel is a talented and, I think, original novelist.’... Views: 510
"I had everything I needed to run a household: a house, food, and a new family. From now on it would just be me and Sammy–the two of us, and no one else."
A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey’s world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing letters is the only thing that feels right to Aubrey, even if no one ever reads them.
With the aid of her loving grandmother and new friends, Aubrey learns that she is not alone, and gradually, she finds the words to express feelings that once seemed impossible to describe. The healing powers of friendship, love, and memory help Aubrey take her first steps toward the future.
Readers will care for Aubrey from page one and will watch her grow until the very end, when she has to make one of the biggest decisions of her life.
Love, Aubrey is devastating, brave, honest, funny, and hopeful, and it introduces a remarkable new writer, Suzanne LaFleur. No matter how old you are, this book is not to be missed.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 510
With precise and atmospheric prose, award-winning author William Kent Krueger "prolongs suspense to the very end" (Publishers Weekly) of this impossible-to-put-down thriller when he unleashes spine-tingling mayhem on a tiny logging town and sends hardscrabble former sheriff Cork O'Connor to investigate.... Not far from Aurora, Minnesota (population 3,752), lies an ancient expanse of great white pines, sacred to the Anishinaabe tribe. When an explosion kills the night watchman at wealthy industrialist Karl Lindstrom's nearby lumber mill, it's obvious where suspicion will fall. Former sheriff Cork O'Connor agrees to help investigate, but he has mixed feelings about the case. For one thing, he is part Anishinaabe. For another, his wife, a lawyer, represents the tribe. Meanwhile, near Lindstrom's lakeside home, a reclusive shipwreck survivor and his sidekick are harboring their own resentment of the industrialist. And it soon becomes clear to Cork that harmony, both at home and in Aurora, will be on the back burner for some time.... Amazon.com ReviewPenzler Pick, March 2001: William Kent Krueger writes the kind of novels mystery lovers love to read: well-written, both character- and plot-driven, with tense scenes and surprise endings. Purgatory Ridge is the third in his series starring Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor, half white, half Ojibwe, who is the sometime sheriff of Aurora, a small town in the North Woods of Minnesota. What is particularly refreshing about Cork O'Connor is that, unlike the portrayal of many private investigators and cops in literature, he is a troubled man with a troubled marriage. He and his wife, Jo, have been through hard times, and although there is plenty of love between them, those hard times often surface and impact investigations and decisions they make regarding their careers. As the story begins, Cork is no longer sheriff, but just has to help investigate when a bomb explodes at the lumber mill run by wealthy industrialist Karl Lindstrom. The bomb kills an Ojibwe Indian who, like many of that nation, objects to the tearing down of the trees in that area, especially those considered sacred by the Ojibwe. In a parallel story, John LePere, half Indian, half white, festers. As the only survivor aboard the Alfred M. Teasdale when she went down in Lake Superior, he thinks about the death of his shipmates, especially his brother. When it is suggested to him that the sinking of the Teasdale may not have been an accident, LePere is pulled into a plot to avenge the deaths. Grace Fitzgerald, heir to the line that owned the Teasdale, happens to be married to Karl Lindstrom. Add the eco-warriors who have come in from other parts of the country to stop the logging, and you have a potent mix of high adventure and skullduggery. Purgatory Ridge is a fine introduction to Krueger and doesn't require that you first read the earlier two books. --Otto PenzlerFrom Publishers WeeklyKrueger's page-turner revisits Cork O'Connor, the part-Irish, part-Anishinaabe/Ojibwe ex-sheriff of Aurora, Minn., a tiny lumber town on the edge of the Superior National Forest, whose exploits were depicted in Boundary Waters. This narrative opens with a bang, as Karl Lindstrom's lumber mill explodes in the early morning hours, killing Ojibwe elder Charlie Warren. The local Native Americans are up in arms over Lindstrom's plan to cut down Our Grandfathers, a grove of old-growth white pines sacred to tribal lore. Outside conservationists have also descended on the town, eager to save the 300-year-old trees. When a person identifying himself as the Eco-Warrior, soldier of the Army of the Earth, claims responsibility for the bombing, the Native Americans are suspected of collusion as Cork's wife, Jo, attorney for the tribe, protests their innocence. Cork had lost his job as sheriff two years before, largely because of inflammatory editorials by Helm Hanover, publisher of the local newspaper, but he cannot stay uninvolved in this case. The quest to identify the Eco-Warrior bomber ultimately focuses on a young outsider, Brent Hamilton, and his zealous mother, who was crippled in a similar bombing. But the number of suspects widens to include Hanover, rumored to be the commander of the secret militant Minnesota Civilian Brigade, and John LePere, lone survivor of the Alfred M. Teasdale, a freighter that sank on Lake Superior six years earlier, drowning his brother, whose body has never been found. Two kidnappings occur. Karl Lindstrom's wife, Grace Fitzgerald, novelist and daughter of the man who owned the freighter, is abducted, and Cork's wife and six-year-old son are also taken as the Eco-Warrior demands $2 million for their safe return. The plot comes full circle as credibly flawed central characters find resolution. Despite some histrionic plot devices, Krueger prolongs suspense to the very end. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Views: 510
Emma Healy has grown used to being the only ordinary one in her rather extraordinary family. But when she finds a birth certificate for a twin brother she never knew she had, along with a death certificate dated just two days later, she realizes why she never felt quite whole. She sets off on a trip to visit her brother's grave. Peter Finnegan, her neighbor, comes along for the ride. Emma thinks they can't possibly have anything in common, but with each passing mile, they find themselves learning more and more about themselves and each other. Views: 509
From Publishers WeeklyBookish appraiser Alexandra Patterson uncovers the secret history of a renegade saint in Terrell's subdued third novel (after The Map Thief). In need of funds to spread their saint's message, the Sisters of St. Brigid decide to sell off a clutch of gold and jeweled relics. In her assessment of their value, Alexandra discovers an ancient manuscript that just might be the lost Book of Kildare, an illuminated manuscript that surpasses in beauty the Book of Kells. She confers with Trinity College professor and old flame Declan Lamb, who backs her hunch. As these contemporary amateur sleuths uncover the manuscript's mysterious origins, Terrell traces in a second plot line the life of Brigid and her faithful scribe, Decius. Despite a promising premise, Terrell's matter-of-fact storytelling and dry weaving of past and present leaves little mystery or magic for readers to pursue. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"Brimming with historical detail, Brigid of Kildare is authentically told with a fascinating premise. Through interwoven and parallel stories, Heather Terrell imagines the discovery of one of history's lost Celtic treasures in an immediate and highly enjoyable fashion."—Susan Fraser King, author of Lady Macbeth From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 508
The only piece of information that Summer Davis takes away from her years at Peninsula Upper School -- one of the finest in the Brooklyn Heights-to-Park Slope radius, to quote the promotional materials -- is the concept that DNA defines who we are and forever ties us to our relatives. A loner by circumstance, a social outcast by nature, and a witty and warm narrator of her own unimaginable chaos by happenstance, Summer hangs on to her interest in genetics like a life raft, in an adolescence marked by absence: her beautiful, aloof mother abandons the family without a trace; her father descends into mental illness, haunted by a lifelong burning secret and abetted by a series of letters that he writes to make sense of his feelings; her best friend Claire drifts out of Summer's life in a breeze of indifference, feigned on both sides; and her older brother fluctuates between irrational fury and unpredictable tenderness in an inaccessible world of his making.
Uncertain of her path and unbalanced by conflicting impulses toward hope and escape, Summer stays close to her father while attending college, taking him to electro-shock therapy treatments and trying to make sense of his inscrutable past. Upon his departure for a new and possibly recovered life, Summer begins to question the role of genetics and whether she is destined to live out her family's legacy of despair. But it is only when Summer decides to leave New York herself and put off a promising science career to take care of her great-aunt Stella -- bedrock of the family and bastion of folksy wisdom, irreverent insight, and Sinatra memorabilia in a less-than-scenic part of the Pennsylvanian countryside -- that Summer begins to learn that her biography doesn't have to define her...and that her future, like her DNA, belongs to her alone.
In a novel consumed by the uncertainties of science, the flaws of our parents, and enough loss and longing to line a highway, Sara Shepard is a penetrating chronicler of the adolescence we all carry into adulthood: how what happens to you as a kid never leaves you, how the fallibility of your parents can make you stronger, and how being right isn't as important as being wise. From the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the brownstones of Brooklyn Heights, The Visibles investigates the secrets of the past, and the hidden corners of our own hearts, to find out whether real happiness is a gift or a choice. Views: 508
Sasha wasn't the boy her father wanted, but he tried to teach her how to hunt anyway. After he was killed, she turned her skill with a bow to different targets. Read it for free at https://stories.osterin.comAydith is a young aetheling whose distrust of the Norsemen often gets dismissed. With the encouragement of a kind hearth companion named Hastings, she might find another way to aid her country."The Lost Tales of Mercia" are ten short tales that can be enjoyed as quick glimpses into the swashbuckling history of ancient England or read alongside the full-length novel, "Eadric the Grasper." Most of the characters are real historical figures inspired by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Views: 508
Four Complete Novels - One Captivating World
In the Forests of the Night
Three hundred years ago Risika was human. Now she is a vampire, a powerful one. And her past has come back to torment her.
Demon in My View
Jessica isn't your average high school student - she's an acclaimed author of vampire fiction. Now two new students at her high school strongly remind her of her favorite characters. But those characters only live in her imagination - right?
Shattered Mirror
Christopher Raneva and Sarah Vida may look like a normal high school couple, but he's actually a vampire who's sworn off human blood and she's an incredibly powerful, vampire-hunting witch. His past and her future collide when they get tangled up with Nikolas, one of the most reviled vampires ever.
Midnight Predator
Once a happy teenager, Turquoise Draka is now a vampire hunter. Her current assigment is to assassinate Jeshikah, one of the cruelest vampires in history. But to do that, she'll have to enter Midnight, a fabled vampire realm, as a human slave.... Views: 507
The first in a new mystery series from the legendary author of the Man From C.A.M.P. and Longhorns, Victor J. Banis. Straight cop, gay cop, and a woman who "isn't real." Tom and Stanley are on the trail of a drag queen serial killer, and along the way, they find themselves engaged in a more intimate pursuit, trying to resolve another mystery: their unexpected attraction to one another. Views: 507
