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Bookshelf SPIDERS ARE LOSING A LOT OF BATTLES TO STARFISH THESE DAYS. Decentralization is changing the very shape of business. As teens swap pirated music files over the Internet, the music industry is being forced to redefine its own methods of marketing and delivery. As craig- slist offers free online advertising to anyone with an Internet connection, newspapers are losing clas- sified advertising revenue. Decentralized organiza- tions are starfish—if you cut off a leg, they grow a new one, and the severed leg becomes a whole new starfish. That's the analogy at the heart of The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom. Spiders are traditional hierarchical organi- zations that are easily destroyed when their heads are chopped off, and spiders are losing a lot of battles to starfish these days. The authors describe a remarkable variety of "starfish," from Apache war- riors to participants at Burning Man, and they use these examples to illustrate the resilience and flexibility of community-based organizations. How to fight them? One way is to decentralize key parts of your own organization, or at least turn it into a hybrid of structure and fluidity. Brafman and Beckstrom offer other solutions, but their overall message is clear: Enabled by the Inter- net, starfish are here to stay. Spiders must adapt or die. (Portfolio, $24.95) Why is it easier for someone to remember a patently false urban myth than details of his company's critically important financial strat- egy? Because most urban myths have the power of "stickiness"—that is, they're presented in a way that makes them memorable. In Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath offer the good news that anyone can learn how to craft an unforgettable idea. Sticky notions rely on simplicity, unexpect- edness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. The Heath brothers— Chip a professor at Stanford, and Dan a consultant at Duke—make their own message sticky by illustrat- ing these six principles with engag- ing anecdotes and vivid examples. Everyone from teachers to marketers to the junior executive trying to 62 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2007 make an effective presentation in the boardroom can learn from this book. (Random House, $24.95) Business experts may argue that corpora- tions should be guided by a strategic business plan, but Nikos Mourko- giannis believes the starting point of all great companies should be Purpose. "Aim high, serve others, do well," he says. "All else is commen- tary." Of course, the commentary is extensive. "Purpose" does not just mean an ethical outlook or a sense of corporate social responsibil- ity, Mourkogiannis explains. It is an essential and overarching set of beliefs that serve as a company's raison d'etre. Business leaders with a sense of purpose gener- ally are driven by one of four great moral ideas, he says, which translate into a passion for the new, the excellent, the help- ful, or the effective. He offers quick biographies of business leaders who operated under each of these mod- els of purposefulness. Henry Ford, for instance, believed the Model T was helpful; it could improve life for ordinary people. IBM's Tom Watson was dedicated to innovation and new ideas. A company guided by purpose can thrive long after com- panies motivated only by profit have failed, Mourkogiannis believes—and can adapt its purpose to changing times to stay successful for decades. (Palgrave MacMillan, $27.95) Must a successful entrepreneur be reckless, ambitious, overconfident, and focused on launching a blockbuster business? Absolutely not, say Antho- ny L. Iaquinto and Stephen Spinelli Jr. in Never Bet the Farm. Both men are entrepreneurs with ties to aca- demia—Spinelli is vice provost at Bab- son College, and Iaquinto was a visit- ing scholar at Arizo- na State—and both advocate caution and good sense in any new business venture. While they clearly recognize the value of hard work and impor- tance of good ideas, they believe that entrepreneurs fare best if they start small, avoid too much debt, invest in familiar products or tech- nologies, resist rushing to market, and have a backup plan in case the venture fails. Not the usual rah-rah excitement to be found in a book about entrepreneurship, but their advice is eminently practical and designed to plant neophyte business