I’ve known Charlene Li a very long time. And I’m convinced that her new book, The Disruption Mindset: Why Some Organizations Transform While Others Fail is her finest accomplishment: a fundamentally important and influential strategy book that’s perfectly suited to today’s biggest business challenge. Disruption is a buzzword. Since Clayton Christensen made it famous with…
A decade ago, in the social media business book Groundswell, Charlene Li and I described online social technologies as an uncontrollable grass-roots movement. I had hoped social media would be a force for good. But now Facebook, along with its subsidiary Instagram, dominates that movement. It controls more of our collective attention – and gathers…
Charlene Li has added her own perspectives on the tenth anniversary of the publication of Groundswell. Read her post on LinkedIn or below: 10 years ago, my co-author Josh Bernoff and I released our first book, “Groundswell: Living in a World Transformed by Social Technologies”. On this anniversary, I wanted to reflect on what our expectations were when…
On April 21, 2008, ten years ago, Charlene Li and I celebrated the publication of our Harvard Business Press book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. It was the first book for each of us. It made an impact, selling over 150,000 copies. Ten years later, I’d like to talk about how…
As I look back on a long and fairly successful career, it’s become clear to me that the disasters, screwups, flops, and efforts that fell decisively short of the goal are the ones that I learned the most from. I started smart, but the flops were where I learned what mattered. On Thanksgiving, I’d like…
The people who inspire me share one quality: a commitment to expressing the truth clearly and without fear — and with a smile. Perhaps that explains my current quest. Here are a few in whose footsteps I hope to follow. Isaac Asimov. Asimov’s plain, direct, clever, and idea-filled prose captivated me in adolescence — and I mean his nonfiction,…
Trying to figure out what you’re building? Figure out first how you’re going to sell it. Write that. Then you’ll know what to build. When Charlene Li and I sat down to plan our book, we needed to start somewhere. She had a lot of great ideas about social media, but we didn’t know which of those…