BUSINESS AS USUAL? FUNK THAT
"The gospel of the new thinking is Funky Business" - Industry Standard "Funky Business is a better book than most novels but it is not for bedtime. It will jerk you out of your complacency and make you question your very existence. It will transform your brain." - Customer Management "... the duo launch into a poweful critique of new business realities. This is not what business people learned at Harvard Business School." "The launch of their book, Funky Business, may mark Nordstrum and Ridderstrale's promotion to the major guru league." Move it.In 1995, 1000 new soft drinks were launched on the Japanese market. A year later, 1% of them were still for sale. Move it fast. If you are driving a 1990 model car, approximately six years were spent developing it. Today, most companies do that job in two years. Move it faster. At Hewlett Packard, the majority revenues come from products that did not exist a year age. Move it now. In Tokyo, you can order a customized Toyota on Monday and be driving it on Friday. More products, more markets, more people, more competition. In a world of abundance and excess, competition is total and competition is personal. Difference rules.If you think about it, most of what your business does could be bought from someone else using the Yellow Pages or an Internet search engine. How are you going to be attractive? By being more efficient? By doing it cheaper? Come on! This is the age of time and talent, where we are selling time and talent, exploiting time and talent, hiring time and talent, packaging time and talent. Today, the "critical resources" wear shoes and walk out the door around 5.30pm every day. Karl Marx was right; the workers should own the critical means of production - it's small, gray and weighs about 1.3 kilograms. It will move markets and it will make capital dance. Only talent will allow you to be unique, to escape business as usual. In this world we need business as unusual. We need innovative business. We need unpredictable business. We need Funky Business. This is business book as unusual. "Funky Business gives a unique, informed and defiantly Funky perspective on the new world order. It is the antidote to bland writing and bland thinking." Tom Peters "Funky Business - the groovy bible of modern business philosophy" Red magazine
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Amazon Review
Oh dear--a book called Funky Business by two Swedish academics. At first glance it has all the allure of Benny and Bjorn's (from Abba) sadly never released concept album about life as a middle manger in a multinational conglomerate. There is something very earnestly hip about the way that Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale of the Stockholm School Of Economics present themselves. "They do gigs not seminars. These gigs sell out. They have shaved heads and wear black", says the blurb.
But that's what makes Funky Business worth reading. It's not so much the novelty of its argument--which boils down to the idea that in an oversupplied world, ideas are what separate successful companies and successful individuals from the failures. It is the vitality of the argument and, dare I say it, the rhythm of the language that make it so compelling. "Traditional roles, jobs, skills, ways of doing things, insights, strategies, aspirations, fears and expectations no longer count. In this environment we cannot have business as usual. We need business as unusual. We need different business. We need innovative business. We need unpredictable business. We need surprising business. We need funky business."
The book, which is almost a virtuoso display of rhetoric and intellectual power, bursts at the seams with the exuberant force of its argument and the weight of its highly colourful supporting evidence. Sources quoted range from the Pope to the Prodigy. Funky Inc, they say, "isn't like any other company. It is not a dull, old conglomerate. It is not a rigid bureaucracy. It is an organisation that actually thrives on the changing circumstances and unpredictability of our times."
This is great entertainment. But the slick veneer does not invalidate the way that the book pulls together many existing strands of thought about how business is developing and evokes a coherent and intriguing vision of a future whose main feature will be incoherence.
This really is one for all the family. Or at least all those old enough to have a job. --Alex Benady
Review
"Funky Business is the antidote to bland writing and bland thinking." Tom Peters "Could barely, literally put down, Funky Business."Warren Bennis "The gospel of the new thinking is Funky Business" - Industry Standard
"It's the best un-businesslike business book I have ever read ....Funky Business is less of a business handbook and more of a religion. It should be treated like a chain letter - read it and pass it onto 10 other people." (or even better, tell 10 other people to buy it) .... This book should carry a government health warning: Read with care - this book will seriously blow your mind. Go on, read it, be a devil - after all, you only live once." - Human Resources
"Funky Business is a better book than most novels but it is not for bedtime. It will jerk you out of your complacency and make you question your very existence. It will transform your brain." - Customer Management "This is the New Economy's Killer Book!" Some say they can't put a certain book down. This one I had to - regularly - in order to recover from the impact of the statement I had just read. I'm in the Internet business and thought I understood plenty about the New Economy. But this book didn't just open my eyes, it ripped them out and tossed them high in the sky!"Rich Preece aus Hamburg, Germany, Amazon Customer Services "Funky Business - the groovy bible of modern business philosophy" Red magazine "You know when Time magazine trumps the rebirth of design on its from cover that something's up. You know too that the world of "boring is best commerce" is taking note of change when books like Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom's Funky Business hits the best-seller lists."Viewpoint magazine
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By Colin Harper
Format:Paperback
Or Funky Business, to be more precise
It is full of hyperbole, is at times intensely irritating, and includes nothing I did not know before...but it is packed with great stories, examples, jokes and for a pair of assistant professors from Stockholm its a very entertaining read. They get it completely... Its a pre-bust book which still makes sense post bust. The points they make about knowing who you are and what you do (at the individual and organisational level) are also spot on.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
The books is great just for the cover alone. Its a pop music business book where you are relieved to find in depth knowledge rather than mere consultant superficiality. I enjoyed it (even if they do attempt everything just to try and shock) even if Thriving on Chaos by Tom Peters did it first. If you want ANSWERS to some of these problems you couldn't do better than E-CUSTOMER by Max Mckeown. I bought it and found a similar level of POW! but the ideas brought to focus on becoming much more successful as a business. Funky E-Customerize yourself to profits.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A really stimulating book this, and I think that some of my fellow reviewers may be missing the point here. This book is all about immersing yourself in the underlying spirit of the human economy - think of it as the new manifesto for companies and individuals who can compete on being different and compete on economies of soul. What it is not is a bandwagon book about the dot com "new economy". That may or may not have come off the rails, but if you actually read this book (and it's not hard - this is engaging stuff) you'll find out that it doesn't talk about hyped dot coms at all. This is about diversity, creativity and competing on personality. Like the Cluetrain Manifesto and No Logo, this won't deliver a big checklist, but it will make you think afresh about business. Funky Business might even just make you feel excited about business life again. When's the last time a business book made you feel that?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and Great book
When I bought It I didn't expect it to be that funny and...different. Maybe I expected a technique similar to a novel, but I was gratefully surprised. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Rafael Muñoz
1.0 out of 5 stars
monkey business
Yet another example of gobbledegook from the unreal world of business ideas. See Francis Wheen's book, "How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered the world", for many more examples. Read more
Published on 10 Dec 2010 by R. Schulz
3.0 out of 5 stars
Funky business is fun but not particularly enlightening
This book was recommended to me by a colleague when we were discussing Blue Ocean Strategy. Unlike most business books its quite an easy read and has some witty and amusing... Read more
Published on 4 Oct 2009 by Amelia Wilson
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Read
Bought this book to look for ideas and I have found it very thought provoking. I have ended up with more questions than answers but that is a good place to be. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2009 by Lesleyg
1.0 out of 5 stars
no substance
I bought the book for a train travel and I ended up throwing it to the garbage bin and enjoying the view. Read more
Published on 9 July 2008 by Jorge Gonzalez Alvarez
5.0 out of 5 stars
Go on, get inspired
Ok put it simply... I L O V E this book.
And yeah, its a "management book" although not like the ones I read when at Business School a few years back (which would have made it... Read more
And yeah, its a "management book" although not like the ones I read when at Business School a few years back (which would have made it... Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2008 by Mr. Philip Graham
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reads like being shouted at by two Swedes from the future
I love it, but you can't read it all at once! I run my own small company that helps other companies use the Web. Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2008 by E. C. Cable
4.0 out of 5 stars
strong book that is worth reading
if you are tired of all those academics telling you how to approach your customer, deal with your employer/employee, etc. Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2006 by slava chirkov
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good introduction to the Information Age
This is definitely an interesting book to read. The authors convincingly outline the dynamics of today's economy as it edges closer to a market driven, knowledge hungry space... Read more
Published on 25 Nov 2005 by Papanastassiou Alexandre
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deservedly popular
One of the most popular innovation texts of the late 1990's, this focuses on how talent and not physical assets is the key to success today. Read more
Published on 19 Mar 2005 by "innovaro"
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