Caveat venditor—let the seller beware While marketers look for more ways to get personal with customers, including new tricks with “big data,” customers are about to get personal in their own ways, with their own tools. Soon consumers will be able to: • Control the flow and use of personal data • Build their own loyalty programs • Dictate their own terms of service • Tell whole markets what they want, how they want it, where and when they should be able to get it, and how much it should cost And they will do all of this outside of any one vendor’s silo. This new landscape we’re entering is what Doc Searls calls The Intention Economy—one in which demand will drive supply far more directly, efficiently, and compellingly than ever before. In this book he describes an economy driven by consumer intent, where vendors must respond to the actual intentions of customers instead of vying for the attention of many. New customer tools will provide the engine, with VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) providing the consumer counterpart to vendors’ CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. For example, imagine being able to change your address once for every company you deal with, or combining services from multiple companies in real time, in your own ways—all while keeping an auditable accounting of every one of your interactions in the marketplace. These tantalizing possibilities and many others are introduced in this book. As customers become more independent and powerful, and the Intention Economy emerges, only vendors and organizations that are ready for the change will survive, and thrive. Where do you stand?
A series of shifts are happening in our economy: Millennials are trading in conventional career paths to launch tech start-ups, start small businesses that are rooted in local communities, or freelance their expertise. We are sharing everything, from bikes and cars, to extra rooms in our homes. We now create, buy and sell handcrafted products in our local communities with ease. Globally recognized entrepreneur, founder of Taproot Foundation and CEO of Imperative, Aaron Hurst, argues in his latest book that while these developments seem unrelated at first, taken together they reveal a powerful pattern that points to purpose as the new driver of the American economy. Like the Information Economy, which has driven innovation and economic growth until now, Hurst argues that our new economic era is driven by connecting people to their purpose. It's an economy where value lies in establishing purpose for employees and customers through serving needs greater than their own, enabling personal growth and building community. Based on interviews with thousands of entrepreneurs, Hurst shows this new era is already fueling demand for a whole host of products and services and transforming how millennials view their careers. A new breed of startups like Etsy, Zaarly, Tough Mudder, Kickstarter, and Airbnb are finding new ways to create value by connecting us with our local communities. At the same time, companies like Tesla and Whole Foods are making the march from just appealing to affluent buyers to becoming mainstream brands. Hurst calls these companies, along with the pioneering entrepreneurs who founded them, the Purpose Economy's taste-makers. This book is at once a personal memoir of Aaron Hurst’s own awakening as a purpose driven entrepreneur, when he left a well-paying tech job in 2001 to launch Taproot, creating a pathway for millions of professionals and Fortune 500 companies to volunteer for nonprofits. It's also a blueprint for a new economic era that is transforming companies, markets and our careers to better serve people and the world.
"Argues that incoherent social programs significantly contribute to poverty and little growth. Proposes converting the existing social security system into universal social entitlements. Advocates eliminating wage-based social security contributions and raising consumption taxes on higher-income households to increase the rate of GDP growth, reduce inequality, and improve benefits for workers"--Provided by publisher.
In 2014 Aaron Hurst, Ashoka fellow and founder of Imperative and Taproot Foundation, published The Purpose Economy, the book that catalyzed the purpose revolution. With his prediction that purpose was the next major economic era, many are now racing to find answers and direction toward discovering their personal, professional, and organizational purpose. Leaders from around the world have embraced Hurst’s work and have asked for more. In this expanded and updated edition Hurst unpacks critical new research and tools for individuals and organizations to find purpose and thrive in this new era. Based on interviews with thousands of entrepreneurs, new survey-backed metrics, and refined societal trends, Hurst shows that this new era is fueling demand for purpose-centered professionals who not only create more satisfying careers, but also contribute more productively to teams and organizations. A new view of success based on relationships, impact, and growth is spreading across the globe, and individuals and organizations that embrace that view have emerged as the leaders of the new economy.
This book is an in-depth study on the past, present and future of digitalization, an important contribution to the literature on the development of the digital economy in China. The technological revolution in telecommunications has brought a “seismic shift” - the periphery has moved to the center, accelerating the emergence of a new digital world. The adoption and integration of advanced digital technologies such as 5G mobile networks, the Internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data analysis and robotics means that the traditional economy, with its organizational, productive and governance systems, is merging with the digital economy, with its innovative features in terms of business models, production, business organization and governance. This makes the digital transformation process highly dynamic and complex, thus challenging many aspects of economies and societies. The author discusses not only what digital transformation means for businesses, but also its impact on society at large, inspiring readers to understand China and the world and think about what digital future we would like to have.
The rapid growth of electronic commerce, along with changes in information, computing, and communications, is having a profound effect on the United States economy. President Clinton recently directed the National Economic Council, in consultation with executive branch agencies, to analyze the economic implications of the Internet and electronic commerce domestically and internationally, and to consider new types of data collection and research that could be undertaken by public and private organizations. This book contains work presented at a conference held by executive branch agencies in May 1999 at the Department of Commerce. The goals of the conference were to assess current research on the digital economy, to engage the private sector in developing the research that informs investment and policy decisions, and to promote better understanding of the growth and socioeconomic implications of information technology and electronic commerce. Aspects of the digital economy addressed include macroeconomic assessment, organizational change, small business, access, market structure and competition, and employment and the workforce.
Private Label is a powerful and compelling book of international scope on both the dangers and the opportunities posed by the rapid growth in recent years of private label or retail brands (those owned, sold and distributed by retailers). Private label growth is outpacing that of manufacturer brands, and the private label industry is now worth an estimated one trillion US dollars. Debunking the myths and looking at all possible scenarios, Private Label encourages brand owners to see the "own brand" problem as a genuine business opportunity that will inspire them to innovate. Moreover, Private Label also suggests ways that retailers can maximize the potential of their own private labels, without damaging their own business. Using research data from a range of global sources, as well as utilizing a comprehensive survey the authors carried out with Saatchi & Saatchi X, Private Label is a gripping and persuasive study of the world of "own brands" and their impact on global markets.
The next twenty years will be completely unlike the last twenty years. The world is in economic crisis, and there are no easy fixes to our predicament. Unsustainable trends in the economy, energy, and the environment have finally caught up with us and are converging on a very narrow window of time—the "Twenty-Teens." The Crash Course presents our predicament and illuminates the path ahead, so you can face the coming disruptions and thrive--without fearing the future or retreating into denial. In this book you will find solid facts and grounded reasoning presented in a calm, positive, non-partisan manner. Our money system places impossible demands upon a finite world. Exponentially rising levels of debt, based on assumptions of future economic growth to fund repayment, will shudder to a halt and then reverse. Unfortunately, our financial system does not operate in reverse. The consequences of massive deleveraging will be severe. Oil is essential for economic growth. The reality of dwindling oil supplies is now internationally recognized, yet virtually no developed nations have a Plan B. The economic risks to individuals, companies, and countries are varied and enormous. Best-case, living standards will drop steadily worldwide. Worst-case, systemic financial crises will toss the world into jarring chaos. This book is written for those who are motivated to learn about the root causes of our predicaments, protect themselves and their families, mitigate risks as much as possible, and control what effects they can. With challenge comes opportunity, and The Crash Course offers a positive vision for how to reshape our lives to be more balanced, resilient, and sustainable.
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.