If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled. If you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional "spiders," which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary "starfish," which rely on the power of peer relationships. This book explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry vs. Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed). It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the US government' are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success.--[from Publisher's description].Includes information on Alcoholics Anonymous, al Qaeda, Amazon, Animal Liberation Front, Apaches, eBay, General Motors, Goodwill Industries, Google, Grokster, Kazaa, music piracy, Napster, P2P (peer to peer) services, Quakers, record industry, U.S. Supreme Court, Wikipedia, etc.
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