Navigator

The Innovation Navigator

Innovation is a top strategic priority for firms across all industries. In The Innovation Navigator, Tucker J. Marion and Sebastian K. Fixson explore four innovation archetypes or modes – "specialist," "venture," "community," and "network" – which feature prominently in the expanding innovation landscape. Specialists employ technologies to achieve entirely new solutions and superior product performance. New corporate ventures lower the barriers for employees to self-select into entrepreneurial projects, while reducing the constraints of bureaucracy. The community brings new sources of knowledge by expanding past the firm's boundaries, dramatically increasing the number of participants. The network creates partnerships and ecosystems that create innovations that could not be developed by individual companies alone. The Innovation Navigator guides the reader in exploring and exploiting these different modes of innovation. Individual chapters provide key insights into the inherent opportunities and challenges from a number of vantage points: from the impact on organizational resources to the role of incentives. The book also provides a framework for how firms can leverage dynamic mode shifts and multimode strategies. Firms across the industrial spectrum are profiled, from new additive manufacturing companies such as Formlabs, community-based solution providers like Forth, to traditional firms exploring new modes like GE Appliances and their FirstBuild initiative. The Innovation Navigator will assist executives in building the capabilities for peak performance in this new innovation landscape.

The Navigator's Children

The latest saga in the New York Times bestselling world of Osten Ard concludes in the fourth and final Last King of Osten Ard novel. The Hayholt is besieged by the Norns. Once the home of their immortal brethren, the Sithi, now capital of the kingdom of men, the fabled castle is under attack. And as the world is distracted by this strike against humankind, the Norns’ deathless witch-queen Utuk’ku turns towards the mysterious fateful valley called Tanakirú—the Vale of Mists. Meanwhile, Queen Miriamele hurries to save the Hayholt and capture the treacherous noble Pasevalles, but arrives to discover the traitor has escaped. And inside Tanakirú, Vale of Mists, the bond between Prince Morgan and Nezeru, a renegade Norn, has become something deeper and stranger than either of them could have anticipated. They journey ever deeper to the heart of the valley’s mystery, encountering wonder and horror, and come face to face at last with the ancient secret that has kindled the Norn Queen’s war—a secret that will destroy immortals and humans alike.

The American practical navigator