Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out
28th March 2006 by Sean
| Author: Douglas Rushkoff |  |
The first line of Get Back in the Box pretty much sums up the book. “There is no Next Big Thing. In fact, the more things seem to change, the better opportunity you have to stay the same.”
Rushkoff, who is a writer of ten-or-so bestsellers, explains throughout this book that the best way to innovate is to focus on your core competencies, create an innovation conducive work environment, and focus on your customers needs. Pretty straight-forward, but very insightful into the way to do this and full of all sorts of examples. Th interview by Kris Krug in the review snippets is great as well.
From a great interview with the author on Kris Krug’s blog.
The original Renaissance brought us perspective painting, the extended metaphor, calculus, circumnavigation of the globe, and the printing press. Our renaissance brings hypertext, chaos math, orbiting the globe, and the internet. We’re experiencing a shift in our ability to contend with dimension that is profound as the shift experienced back in the 1500’s. And the same kind of shift is happening across all the disciplines, not just technology. In fact, it’s rupturing the notion of separated disciplines, itself.
Douglas Rushkoff’s Web site. Be sure to read his articles/essays.
A review by Fast Company.
From Mediatron
Remember when eBay hit it big in the 1990s and shortly after, there was a multitude of sites offering to sell your old moldy toys for you? Name five of those other companies right now. Can’t do it, can you? That’s because most of those other companies weren’t innovating, but adopting and quickly implementing a business model that eBay had spent years developing and perfecting. Those other companies couldn’t swing it because they were jumping into an area of customer service and selling that was not at all familiar to them. Instead of concentrating on hosting web sites or selling their own widgets, they tried to think outside of the box and failed. When they should have reworked their tired business strategy, they just heaped someone else’s on top.
They should have stayed in the box. Reworked the box. Brought excited new customers and employees into the box as innovators. Made the box not such a box after all.