If you're looking for some great summer reads and content, I wanted to send along my latest piece for Harvard Business Review, written with my colleague Barry Libert. In "You Don't Need to Be a Silicon Valley Startup to Have a Network-Based Strategy," we talk about how legacy businesses can leverage the power of platforms and network effects to grow exponentially, without turning themselves completely inside out. We hope to inspire those of you at legacy companies to understand that you can incorporate many of the mental models that make Uber and Airbnb successful without becoming "the next" Uber or Airbnb.
Barry and I also wrote a piece in which we applied this thinking to Harvard Business Review itself. Interestingly, they chose not to publish it, in part because they weren't sure it would be relevant to their audience. We thought otherwise, so with their blessing we published it on LinkedIn as "Transforming Harvard Business Review: An Exercise in Platform Thinking." It's a good thought exercise on how to rethink a traditional business.
In case you missed my webinar with Singularity University, you can catch a recording of it here. I talk about the difference between incremental and exponential thinking, and the challenges that change agents often face as they bring innovation into organizations. If you prefer summer reading over summer viewing, here's my article on the same topic.
Finally, a topic that keeps coming up over and over again these days is how to shift other people's thinking. If this is relevant for you, here's an article from a few years ago that you might find of interest on how to sell a new way of thinking.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and reactions. You can reach me at mark@shift.to, on LinkedIn or on Twitter @markbonchek.
Mark