Book Brief: The Strategy Machine: Building Your Business One Idea at a Time

By Larry Downes
HarperBusiness, June 2002
256 pages, $26.96

In his follow up to Unleashing the Killer App, Downes spends relatively little time on technology per se. He starts with the premise that pervasive computing—having a computer in virtually everything—will soon become commonplace. When that happens, he argues, better computing power won't matter. Instead, business success will be predicated on how well you handle financing, government regulations, and conflicts inside and outside your organization. "Change, even beneficial change, is hard," he writes. "It is human nature to resist it, and there is only one technology that can overcome human nature; that technology is called leadership." This is where he devotes his time.