In this book, Kawasaki urges his reader to create disruption for “fun and profit.” The book is organized into four parts, Lay the Groundwork; Do the Right Things; Do Things Right; and Push the Envelope. Within each of the four parts, Kawasaki includes interviews with various corporate executives who share their real-world experiences. He offers hundreds of examples to illustrate his ideas about non-conformist strategies that will help achieve a competitive advantage. This book is a highly illustrative product management primer that is a "must read" for newly appointed product managers and a "must review" for established product managers. In terms of new product development, although not new, the author emphasis on integrating manufacturing and marketing is refreshing. Marketing is not a "fuzzy front-end" or "back-end" to manufacturing, but a co-determinant of the success or failure of the resultant new product. The four principles described in this book are based on knowing: 1) the business of your company (its mission -- makes candles or delivers light); 2) why your customers buy your products; 3) why the customers of your competitors buy their products; 4) why prospective customers do not buy either your or your competitors' products. Kawasaki distills these principles into exercises that define and interesting use of the book as a text or primer for a series of seminars on How to Drive Your Competition Crazy.
-- Guy Kawasaki (Hyperion)