Creating a World Without Poverty : Muhammed Yunus

Yunus (founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace prize winner) pioneered microcredit and the concept of "social business" and has put together this inspiring read. He exhorts businesses and individuals to "think out of the capitalism box" to make themselves the solution to the inequalities in healthcare, education, pollution and poverty we see in our societies and communities today. He explores, encourages and speaks from experience on how we can contribute what is priceless, both to us and those whom will benefit.

You don't have to have a PhD in Economics for this book to speak to your heart, conscience and mind. It is structured to be easy to read and keeps you interested throughout the book. You cannot go through a page in this book without being inspired, without questioning what you can do and without questioning yourself.

Whether you are an individual who does the daily commute and wondering how you can make a difference on your own, or whether you are exploring the direction your business should take to do more than "just make money", then this is one for you to read. It may not give you all the answers, but Yunus will definitely try.

This is partly a story about how one man has made such an impact on the people of Bangladesh and stirred the economic world, and partly a guide and a structure on how individuals and business can steer themselves towards making a fairer world. However, I felt that the 'rest of book' has not yet been written as it is up to us to decide how it concludes through our actions....

You will not see the world and business in the same way.
Submitted by Nanditha da Silva

Published by PublicAffairs (3 Jan 2008)
ISBN-10: 1586484931
ISBN-13: 978-1586484934

The Starfish and the Spider

It's a starfish world and most people don't even realize it

One thing that business, institutions, governments and key individuals will have to realize is spiders and starfish may look alike, but starfish have a miraculous quality to them. Cut off the leg of a spider, and you have a seven-legged creature on your hands; cut off its head and you have a dead spider. But cut off the arm of a starfish and it will grow a new one. Not only that, but the severed arm can grow an entirely new body. Starfish can achieve this feat because, unlike spiders, they are decentralized; every major organ is replicated across each arm.

But starfish don't just exist in the animal kingdom. Starfish organizations are taking society and the business world by storm, and are changing the rules of strategy and competition. Like starfish in the sea, starfish organizations are organized on very different principles than we are used to seeing in traditional organizations. Spider organizations are centralized and have clear organs and structure. You know who is in charge. You see them coming.

Starfish organizations, on the other hand, are based on completely different principles. They tend to organize around a shared ideology or a simple platform for communication- around ideologies like al Qaeda or Alcoholics Anonymous. They arise rapidly around the simplest ideas or platforms. Ideas or platforms that can be easily duplicated. Once they arrive they can be massively disruptive and are here to stay, for good or bad. And the Internet can help them flourish.

So in today's world starfish are starting to gain the upper hand.

How can Toyota leverage starfish principles to crush their spider-like rivals, GM and Ford? How did tiny Napster cripple the global music industry? Why is free, community based Wikipedia crushing Encyclopedia Britannica overnight? Why is tiny Craigslist crippling the global newspaper industry? Why is Al Quaeda flourishing and even growing stronger? In today's world to answer this it is essential to understand the potential strength of a starfish organization.

The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, explores the phenomenal and unstoppable new power of the starfish organizations and will change the way you look at the world.

Published by the Penguin Group
ISBN - 1-59184-143-7