Free Book (Kindle/nook) - The Open Innovation Marketplace

Update: 12/5/11 Now free for US Kindle customers and from Barnes & Noble.

The Open Innovation Marketplace: Creating Value in the Challenge Driven Enterprise (US/UK), by Alpheus Bingham and Dwayne Spradlin, is free for UK customers in the Kindle store. It should be free for those in the US by morning (but double check the price before one-clicking).

Book Description
The Open Innovation Marketplace introduces groundbreaking strategies and models for leveraging the world’s best innovation sources to drive far more value from new products, services, and business models–and do it with far less risk.

Alpheus Bingham and Dwayne Spradlin draw on their pioneering experience building InnoCentive, the leading global platform for open innovation. Writing for CxOs, R&D leaders, and innovation strategists, they show how to dramatically increase the flow of high-value innovations, access innovators you would never hire internally, and successfully integrate external innovation throughout your business.

Through illustrative case studies, Bingham and Spradlin demonstrate open innovation at work in pharmaceuticals, consumer products, software, aeronautics, and beyond. They show how to construct “challenges” that focus innovation on critical business needs, can attract breakthrough strategies and solutions, and how to transform your enterprise to do it over and over again.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - The Culture Cycle

Update: 12/5/11 Now free for US Kindle customers and from Barnes & Noble.

The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force that Transforms Performance (US/UK), by James Heskett, is free for UK customers in the Kindle store. It should be free for those in the US by morning (but double check the price before one-clicking).

Book Description
The contribution of culture to organizational performance is substantial and quantifiable. In The Culture Cycle, renowned thought leader James Heskett demonstrates how an effective culture can account for up to half of the differential in performance between organizations in the same business. A follow-up to the classic Corporate Culture and Performance (coauthored with John Kotter), this book explains how culture evolves, can be shaped and sustained, and can promote both survival and innovation in tough times.

Drawing on decades of field research and dozens of case studies, Heskett introduces a powerful conceptual framework for managing culture and shows it at work in a real-world setting. Heskett's "culture cycle" identifies policies, practices, and behaviors that are crucial to moving cultures forward and demonstrates how to calculate the economic value of culture through the "Four Rs": referrals, retention, returns to labor, and relationships with customers.

Heskett's insights will be invaluable to leaders, professionals, and consultants in HR, productivity, training, and operations--and for anyone seeking to optimize organizational performance.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Free Book (Kindle) - Insights from Remarkable Businesspeople

Update: 12/5/11 Now free for US Kindle customers.

Insights from Remarkable Businesspeople (US/UK), a collection of business shorts from FT press, is a repeat freebie for UK customers in the Kindle store. It should be free for those in the US by morning (but double check the price before one-clicking).

Book Description
A brand new collection of essential insights for your business and career from world-renowned experts...now in a convenient e-format, at a great price!

Get it straight from the top: secrets only the world’s best leaders can tell you!

What it takes to lead your team to greatness! Outstanding leaders tell you how to identify and fix even the biggest problems...get buy-in that’s real...balance external customers and internal processes...infuse creativity throughout your organization, and reinvent its future...get results, not salutes!

From world-renowned leaders and experts, including Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, Jim Champy, Fred Wiersema, Dean LeBaron, Michael F. Golden, Gary Hirshberg, and many more.

Free Book (Kindle) - Chips, Clones, and Living Beyond 100 (UK)

Chips, Clones, and Living Beyond 100: How Far Will the Biosciences Take Us? (US/UK), by Joyce A. Schoemaker and Paul J. H. Schoemaker, is a repeat freebie for UK customers in the Kindle store. It should be free for those in the US by morning (but double check the price before one-clicking).

Book Description
The key scientific discoveries of the 21st century are coming from the biosciences. These discoveries will impact our lives in ways we can only begin to imagine. Now, two leading experts will help you imagine those impacts--and prepare for them. Paul and Joyce Schoemaker preview the research innovations most likely to emerge in the coming years and reveal what they’re likely to mean for everything from human longevity to the health of society, from bioterrorism to personalized medicine.

Writing for every interested citizen and consumer, the Schoemakers illuminate the hottest technologies and most controversial issues associated with contemporary biotechnology--including stem cells, cloning, pharmacogenetics, DNA chips, proteomics, gene therapy, and much more. Then, drawing on Paul Schoemaker’s unsurpassed experience helping global organizations prepare for the future, the authors sketch multiple long-term scenarios for the biosciences…and reveal how they will impact your health, family, career, and the society you live in.

Free Book (Kindle/nook) - Firms of Endearment

Update: 12/5/11 Now free for US Kindle customers and from Barnes & Noble.

Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose (US/UK), by Jagdish N. Sheth, Rajendra S. Sisodia and David B. Wolfe, is a repeat freebie for UK customers in the Kindle store. It should be free for those in the US by morning (but double check the price before one-clicking).

Book Description
Today’s best companies get it. From Costco® to Commerce Bank, Wegmans to Whole Foods®: they’re becoming the ultimate value creators. They’re generating every form of value that matters: emotional, experiential, social, and financial. And they’re doing it for all their stakeholders. Not because it’s “politically correct”: because it’s the only path to long-term competitive advantage.

These are the Firms of Endearment. Companies people love doing business with. Love partnering with. Love working for. Love investing in. Companies for whom “loyalty” isn’t just real: it’s palpable, and driving unbeatable advantages in everything from marketing to recruitment.

You need to become one of those companies. This book will show you how. You’ll find specific, practical guidance on transforming every relationship you have: with customers, associates, partners, investors, and society. If you want to be great–truly great–this is your blueprint.

We’re entering an Age of Transcendence, as people increasingly search for higher meaning in their lives, not just more possessions. This is transforming the marketplace, the workplace, the very soul of capitalism. Increasingly, today’s most successful companies are bringing love, joy, authenticity, empathy, and soulfulness into their businesses: they are delivering emotional, experiential, and social value—not just profits.

Firms of Endearment illuminates this, the most fundamental transformation in capitalism since Adam Smith. It’s not about “corporate social responsibility”: it’s about building companies that can sustain success in a radically new era. It’s about great companies like IDEO and IKEA®, Commerce Bank and Costco®, Wegmans and Whole Foods®: how they earn the powerful loyalty and affection that enables truly breathtaking performance.

This book is about gaining “share of heart,” not just share of wallet. It’s about aligning stakeholders’ interests, not just juggling them. It’s about building companies that leave the world a better place. Most of all, it’s about why you must do all this, or risk being left in the dust... and how to get there from wherever you are now.

Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.