Perhaps not for the general public, but a must-have for those in the business of business.
A lively and informative narrative of product-based entrepreneurship in the virtual-product age, by business-school roommates who built and sold a better mouse.
A computer mouse, that is, and shaped like a golf driver at that. Lusk and Harrison were both on track to graduate from Wharton in 1999, with career prospects of an eminently respectable and highly lucrative sort regularly dangled before them. They chose instead to create a company called Platinum Concepts, whose first product was said mouse resembling the head of a golf driver. Harrison took the title of president; Lusk became marketing vice-president. They designed their product, developed business and marketing plans, and established their company base in their San Francisco apartment. Adventures and misadventures followed on the road to profit. Product samples manufactured in Hong Kong arrived; design adjustments consumed considerable time and energy. They learned that the buying period for the Christmas retail season had already passed and realized they had neglected key aspects of product distribution, essential to wholesale-to-retail marketing. New strategies were developed, and the company made its first sale: 200 MouseDrivers to Bank of America. Assorted personalities the company encountered included a nearly narcoleptic sales representative and a psycho-gonzo retail consultant; successes included contacts established with suppliers in the promotional products industry and at trade shows. The company made a profit, and the tale ends with Platinum Concepts still solvent and operational. The authors’ story is as clean and fast as a Tiger Woods tee-shot; they share copious amounts of information with generosity, humor, and all-American spirit.
Perhaps not for the general public, but a must-have for those in the business of business.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7382-0573-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Perseus
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
Like the Energizer Bunny, Drucker just keeps on going, and going . . . beating the drum for perceptive, responsible management in the public as well as private sectors. As with many of the maestro's previous works (Post-Capitalist Society, 1993, etc.), most of the essays and interviews here have already been published (in Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, and elsewhere). Using as a departure point the apprehension that knowledge has become the Global Village's primary resource, Drucker comments on the realities of planning ahead, the sort of intelligence executives require to operate effectively, the consequences of shortchanging research budgets, the likelihood that for-profit enterprises could be obliged to pursue growth through alliances rather than through acquisition, and related topics. To a great extent, Drucker points out, the shape of things to come may be discerned from demographic and allied data that's readily available. In this context, he assesses where sizable new markets might emerge. Geographically, the author sees a wealth of potential in coastal China and other Pacific Basin outposts; commercially, he anticipates substantive opportunities in agrobiology, alternative energy sources, infrastructure projects (including telecommunications networks), pollution abatement, and retirement programs. Drucker goes on to caution that any state's domestic policies can profoundly affect the competitiveness of corporations subject to its jurisdiction. Accordingly, he argues, something more than lip service must be paid to the goal of reinventing government, in large part because the root cause of poverty for countries as well as individuals in tomorrow's world will be ignorance. Nor does Drucker overlook the importance of a so-called third sector, i.e., the nonprofit community-service organizations that address a modern nation's social challenges. In brief: wise, wide-ranging guidance on issues that promise to engage the attention of leaders and followers through the end of the century and beyond.
Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1995
ISBN: 0-525-94053-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Longtime Wall Street Journal reporter and editor Petzinger (Oil and Honor, 1987) was once a baggage handler for United Airlines. Now he effectively handles some heavy stuff for the whole airline industry with a thoroughgoing description of the business and the tycoons who've ruled it since deregulation 17 years ago. The tale is as fascinating as any of Barbary buccaneers, railroad magnates, or others of the robber baron ilk. There are lots of men like the scary Frank Lorenzo, who, when he learned of another airline's DC-9 crashing with 90 people aboard, cried ``Ninety? Shit! We're only carrying 70 on a DC-9!'' (He reconfigured his planes to pack in more seats.) Eastern, Pan Am, Frontier, Braniff, and People Express, among others, all came to bad ends as the madly competitive, cannibalistic CEOs played musical executive chairs. Ticket prices no longer have any relation to a trip's distance, but are the result of fare fights and the need to fill every seat on every flight. The hub system, which requires hauling customers all over the skies, was developed to keep other carriers from getting their hands on hapless passengers. Reservation systems were secretly rigged to favor the few airlines that owned them. The pilots' unions were played against the machinists' union and both were played against the flight attendants' until the acronym BOHICA—for ``bend over, here it comes again''—was common in the ranks. Illegal campaign payments were made. Suicides took place. As one CEO put it, ``It was not good-spirited competition.'' Petzinger thinks that the competitive craziness is just about played out and that other problems, perhaps involving the Internet or affecting safety, will appear. (He doesn't mention the disarray in air traffic control or mounting frequent-flier obligations.) A sharply drawn, engaging book about air wars largely led by some colorful brigands. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-8129-2186-0
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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