The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley
Victor W. Hwang and Greg Horowitt
Regenwald, 304 pages
What makes places like Silicon Valley tick? Can we replicate that magic in other places? How do you foster innovation in your own networks? Victor W. Hwang and Greg Horowitt propose a radical new theory to explain the nature of innovation ecosystems: human networks that generate extraordinary creativity and output. They argue that free market thinking fails to consider the impact of human nature on the innovation process.
These ecosystems, or Rainforests, can only thrive when certain cultural behaviors unlock human potential. The authors provide practical tools for readers to design, build and sustain new innovation ecosystems. The Rainforest challenges the basic assumptions that economists have held for over a century and will transform the way you think about technology, business and leadership.
The Coming Jobs War
Jim Clifton
Gallup Press, 220 pages
Drawing on 75 years of Gallup studies and his own perspective as the company’s chairman and CEO, Jim Clifton explains why jobs are the new global currency for leaders. To win, leaders need to compete. The business community needs to double the psychological engagement of workers so that it can compete with cheaper labor. Perhaps most importantly, leaders need to recognize universities, mentors and especially cities as a supercollider for job creation. There’s not a moment to waste: the war has already begun.
Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back
John Kao
Free Press, 320 pages
John Kao first offers a stunning, troubling portrait of the recent erosion of U.S. competitiveness in innovation, then he takes readers on a fascinating tour of the leading innovation centers, such as those in Singapore, Denmark and Finland, which are trumping us in their more focused and creative approaches to fueling innovation. He then lays out a groundbreaking plan for a national innovation strategy that would empower the U.S. to marshal its vast resources of talent and infrastructure in ways that will produce transformative results.
