The Best News Out of Afghanistan: After Mistakes, Invaluable Lessons
The Best News Out of Afghanistan: After Mistakes, Invaluable Lessons Kalki's ancestor designed Eiffel Tower
*I don't know why that so funny; of course her ancestor designed the Eiffel Tower, somebody had to do it. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp *I really like Tehelka's culture coverage. Even Tehelka's fluffiest, most crowd-pleasing puff-pieces have something nerve-wracking about them. Tehelka's always got this atmosphere of, "Here's cute and clever novelist Arundhati Roy in her denim cutoffs, ...

Will Allen's 'Good Food Revolution'
His new autobiography chronicles Allen's unexpected journey from professional basketball player to urban farming pioneer. Top 10 Most Popular Stories Of The Week

Here are the stories you clicked, shared, and spent the most time with.

This week we reported on a glass coating developed by MIT that not even ketchup or mayo can resist. And Aisha Mustafa patented a new quantum physics propulsion system that could revolutionize the way we navigate the galaxy. We also reported on “CITE,” the most technologically advanced ghost town on the planet.  

1. 8 Rules For Creating A Passionate Work Culture Fast Company

Paul Alofs offers 8 rules for creating the ideal work culture.

2. MIT's Freaky Non-Stick Coating Keeps Ketchup Flowing Co.Exist

Austin Carr reports on why we might never again have to pound the old “57” on our ketchup bottles.

3. Mustafa's Space Drive: An Egyptian Student's Quantum Physics Invention Fast Company

Aisha Mustafa (a 19-year-old student) might have discovered a new method of space travel. NASA, take note.

4. America's Most Innovative Neighborhood: 15 Square Miles In New Mexico, Population: 0 Fast Company

Humanity is now building super-advanced “testing cities” with no inhabitants. Does this sound like the beginning of a Resident Evil movie to anyone else?

5. The "Hell Yes!" Approach To Better, Bolder Decision Making Fast Company

Amber Rae makes the case for the “Hell Yes!” approach to decision making.

6. To Get To The Root Of A Hard Problem, Just Ask "Why" Five Times Co.Design

Eric Ries imparts the importance of “why.”

7. The Mouthwash Principle: For Max Effectiveness At Work, Rinse And Repeat Fast Company

Peter Bregman implores you to channel a little bit of that broken record in you.

8. Dude, This Diplomat's No Stiff Fast Company

Suzanne Philion looks to change the way that we perceive public servants.

9. Yahoo Announces Axis, A New Visual Paradigm In Web Search UI Co.Design

Axis (a new browser from Yahoo) looks to change the way that we navigate the web through our phones, tablets, and computers.

10. The 5 All-Time Best Facebook Campaigns Co.Create

Teressa Iezzi compiles the 5 best Facebook-related advertisements, which range from clever, to poignant, to downright creepy.

Catch up on other stories and never miss a beat by signing up for Fast Company daily and weekly newsletters.

Read more selections from our Weekly 10 series.

Augmented Reality: T(ether) from MIT
*Well, the ergonomics of pads and gloves are gonna need a lot of work... At the very least somebody in the AR biz needs to come up with a rubber clip-on pad-holder you can securely slip your hand through, instead of sweatily holding an expensive fragile windowpane at arm's length. *But look at that! ...

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When they click, they're timeless; when they clunk, they're also unforgettable (for the wrong reasons) This Week In Bots: Saluting The First President Of The Robot Epoch

Bot vid: Darpa's Robbie

One of the more interesting robotics programs that DARPA funds is the Autonomous Robotic Manipulation project, designed to produce robots that can perform relatively complex tasks without too much supervision (obvious military implications here). As revealed over at the Automaton blog, robot maker RE2 has a robot in this program, cheerfully dubbed Robbie. The strength of the robot's design is in its grippers that approximate human hands. They have sensors so the machine even feels "touch" a little like we do.

[youtube UpyKt6mClVA]

Bot vid: Smart Tripod

The winner of this year's Microsoft Robotics @Home competition is interesting: It's a tripod on a mobile base that can follow its subjects around, using a Kinect sensor to navigate and detect the movements of its human subjects for control purposes. The tech can be used for, say, creating a low-budget movie's tracking shots. The winner was Arthur Wait, who earned a check for $10,000.

[youtube 6J9uRbjQGjY]

Bot vid: Fukushimabot

The Future Robotics Technology Center in Japan has just demonstrated its new robot destined to help assess and perhaps clean up the nuclear mess at Japan's tsunami-ravaged Fukushima nuclear site. Rosemary, as the machine is called, is roughly the size of a lawnmower and has unusual feet that swivel to navigate obstacles or crawl up a slope of greater than 60 degrees. Best of all it's strong enough to carry gear weighing up to 60 kilos (approx. 132 lbs.), making it ideal for ferrying sensors, imaging units, and perhaps clean-up equipment into radiation-damaged zones.

[youtube a6qBHpyQMas]

Bot News

Robofish. This week a large yellow robot fish could be seen swimming in the ocean off the Spanish port of Gijon, taking part in free water tests of its systems. The five-foot, $31,000 European machine is crammed with sensors designed to detect pollutants that have leaked from vessels or underwater facilities like pipelines, and the goal is to have many fish swimming in sensitive areas to give a very early warning of contamination. Its fish-like design is an attempt to avoid problems like propeller snarl on debris.

Ocean swimmers. On Monday the famous WaveGlider robots from Liquid Robotics were sent off from their stopover at Hawaii en route to their final destinations in Japan and Australia. The experiment is already a success, and the devices have proven useful in collecting data on sea and air environments to aid climate studies and weather forecasting. They swim autonomously, propelled by the motion of water waves.

Australian telepresence museum bot. By November this year the Australian National Museum, in concert with science body CSIRO, will have a robotic telepresence droid roaming its corridors. Equipped with sensors and clever camera units, the idea is to give remote students access to each of the museum's exhibits in more detail than may be possible with a visit in person. It's a six-month experiment that may become permanent.

Bot Futures: The First President of the Robot Era?

When the next President of the United States takes office in 2013, it's unlikely he'll have to get to work on a raft of robotics legislation. But as an intriguing NPR piece points out this week, he is likely to be the very first president who has to deal with robotics-related issues on a regular basis. 

That's simply because robots are everywhere, and their presence in places of work, military forces, police forces, emergency services, farms, factories, and homes is only increasing. Robotic technology is penetrating deeply into American lifestyles.

Robots are, for example, finding uses on farms where they can simplify many of the more mundane farming jobs like tilling, distributing pesticide, and even crop-harvesting--potentially driving up efficiency and thus lowering production costs. Robot technology is being used in schools to drive student interest in science and engineering...and even to teach some lessons or boost student writing skills. They're going to take over the role of some military pilots soon enough, and the ever-expanding drone fleet means U.S. robots are killing enemy combatants, and, sadly, making mistakes overseas right now. Drone robots are even penetrating the skies of the U.S. And there are early examples of the use of robots as political agitators, as in the case of the ONE Street Tweeter, which prints political protest tweets on the streets like a giant mobile inkjet printer.

A few of the thorny issues facing the next president: Of course robots in the workforce improve efficiency and help drive costs down, but is it better for the population to have more folk employed and working slightly less efficiently? Will American citizens tolerate police forces using drones for surveillance, as they become ever more aware of their right to privacy? What happens when the first armed police drone kills a bystander?

By 2017, when the next Comander in Chief takes office, he or she may actually have to develop policies on robots in addition to economic, social, health care, and military matters. Such mechanical issues may even be part of the campaign.

[Image: U.S. Navy]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

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Boost your brainpower with help from reigning U.S. memory champ Nelson Dellis SpaceX's Dragon Capsule Makes Historic Rendezvous With ISS

News updates all day from your Fast Company editors.

Following a successful launch on Tuesday--and a series of complex maneuvers demonstrating that it could be controlled both from the ground and by the space crew--SpaceX's Dragon capsule has just arrived at the International Space Station. It's a historic moment because it marks the first time a non-government spacecraft has connected with another vehicle in space. (SpaceX's CEO is Tesla's Elon Musk.) This latest maneuver was performed differently than the automated docking that the European ATV and Russian Soyuz craft employ: The ISS crew captured the Dragon using the long Canadarm robotic manipulator (like catching "a Dragon by the tail" as astronaut Don Pettit described it). The crew will then maneuver the craft to be mated to the ISS's docking port, at which point its cargo can be ferried aboard. The hook-up marks an important milestone in the U.S.'s ambitions for commercial space tech.

Update: NASA reports that the Dragon capsule has been manuevered to its docking port and successfully captured by the latch mechanisms on the ISS at 10:01 a.m. ET, effectively marking its berthing in space. The hatch will be opened soon, and then astronauts will later access the cargo.

Check in on our main Fast Feed page for updates on the news through the day.

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And some advice, even if you've got your own way of doing things Globalization Plays a Bit Part in Environmental Issues

It is inevitable that prices don't always account for all the costs and benefits for all the people touched by a transaction. Externalities can come in good forms and bad. But the most frequently discussed externalities are those associated with harms to the environment.

Of course, globalization has an impact on the environment, but it is a mixed one and generally far less scary than many people think. Most ecological problems are still local as opposed to global, and while cross-border integration can make the environment dirtier in some places, it can also help with cleaning it up.

As pressure mounts to reduce carbon emissions, the logistics involved with cross-border trade are often cited as an unnecessary cause. With dark-green-tinted spectacles, many call for a return to only locally grown or manufactured products. But let's face it: Consumer demand and expectations have changed a lot since the days of zero cross-border trade. Since a collective global vow of poverty seems unlikely to be taken soon, keeping up with modern demands without cross-border trade would actually do more harm to the environment than good. For example, in 2007, the U.K.-based supermarket chain Tesco decided to ban rose imports from Kenya in a bid to save on emissions. But research revealed that the Dutch roses it relied on instead generated six times as much in the way of greenhouse gases, largely because they were literally grown in greenhouses.

And how much of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions do you think international transport really produces? Since the bulk of internationally-traded merchandise travels by sea, shipping should be the first port of call. Estimates indicate (PDF) that international shipping causes 2-3% of energy-related CO2 emissions (PDF). This may come as a surprise when you think about the long distances ships travel to transport cargo. But on a per-ton-kilometer basis, a cargo ship emits just 15-21g of CO2, as compared to a truck's equivalent 50g (PDF). So carrying something a long distance across the ocean can actually work out to be less harmful than transporting goods a shorter distance over land.

Of course, goods (and people) often travel by plane, too, so we should add the estimated 1-2% of energy-related CO2 emissions caused by international air transportation to the mix (part of its estimated 3% contribution to human-induced climate change (PDF)). This is a fraction of the 20%+ the general public tends to guess, and transport-related emissions from international aviation are one-tenth as much as those from (mostly domestic) driving. Transport used to facilitate international trade does cause some harm to the environment, but it pales in comparison with the domestically-caused damage.

So far I have focused on the direct effects on the environment caused by increased cross-border flows, but what about possible indirect effects? Again, while these effects do exist, they are a mixture of positive and negative, and need to be balanced for a realistic perspective. An example of an indirect composition effect that economists tend to worry about is dirtier industries migrating to (generally) less developed countries with laxer regulations. A recent study (PDF) found that in low-income countries, more trade is associated with higher per capita energy consumption, while the opposite applies to high-income countries. This fits with the idea that imports into rich countries are more pollution-heavy than their exports. But such broad analysis fails to take details into account.

With different countries implementing different rules of varying severity, some differences in energy consumption are to be expected. But there is also evidence that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can actually help to spur adoption of cleaner production methods. To maintain consistency across plants (and avoid negative publicity), foreign companies often bring in new technologies and implement higher environmental standards than local firms. More specifically, Germany's high green standards have actually spilled over in some instances to China, where some exporting companies have started to match German requirements even in their domestic products.

The direct and indirect effects of globalization on the environment are less pronounced than many think, but that does not mean that globalization can be ignored in the search for solutions to real environmental problems. The attention to distance sensitivity that is crucial to properly understanding levels and patterns of globalization provides a useful guide as to how to scope environmental solutions. For distance-sensitive pollutants that stay more or less within borders, local solutions are appropriate. But for pollutants that span regions, cross-border cooperation can be crucial for any attempts at a cleanup. For example, cooperation between the U.S. and Canada (most notably the 1991 U.S.-Canada Air Quality Agreement) has helped to reduce North American sulfur dioxide emissions by roughly two-thirds since 1980, going a long way toward addressing the problem of acid rain in that region.

Climate change is by far the most difficult environmental externality of all to combat because of its (unusual) distance-insensitivity. Therefore, in order to tackle it we need more, rather than less, international cooperation. Of course, with the variety of cross-country distances and differences between all the nations that make up the world, such cooperation will need to be both complex and innovative. The failure of the 2009 Copenhagen Conference of the Parties to reach a binding accord on targets for reduction of greenhouse gases shows how it is not as simple as putting a bunch of leaders in a room and getting them to come up with a plan.

Unlike many supposed failures and fears associated with increased global integration, in the case of the environment, globalization has had a part to play. However, it has been a bit part, as opposed to a starring role. And it should be weighed up with gains from cross-border integration, for a more balanced view. Of course, this is not to say that global strategy should ignore environmental externalities. Quite the opposite, integration should be used as a tool for addressing externalities that affect more than one country and for sharing knowledge on greener techniques where effects are localized. And given limited capacity for truly global action, it is useful to recognize that only the most distance-insensitive environmental externalities, such as climate change, require completely global coordination.

How to Get Amazing Abs
Old-school crunches are great and all, but experts swear these moves will give you tight, toned abs even faster. Don't Let the Minimum Win Over the Viable

The widespread adoption of Eric Ries's work beyond Silicon Valley has been a godsend for innovators. The Lean Startup has crystallized many of the ideas fundamental to successful innovation and provided companies with additional ways to understand and make room for rapid iteration, agile development, and in-market testing of new ideas. At IDEO, we frequently refer to Ries's work to help clients understand approaches to innovation, and believe that we have identified a few helpful best practices that build on the approach defined in The Lean Startup.

Cut the fat, not the essence
In the pursuit of a minimum viable product (MVP), we've seen that it's important to evaluate early the critical components that will differentiate an offer from competition and make a product truly viable.

An MVP should be the easiest way to test your hypothesis, but that doesn't mean that building one is easy. A common mistake is refusing to tackle the tough technical problems that create revolutionary offerings. As Ries writes, some entrepreneurs hear "minimum viable" product as "smallest imaginable" product. This misunderstanding of Lean Startup tenets can have expensive consequences. Sometimes, entrepreneurs miss a key opportunity to establish market differentiation by interpreting the "minimum" component of an MVP to mean "nothing challenging." Worse, they sometimes create a product that's not competitive by rationalizing that they can get 'something like' the core idea by replacing a feature with something easier to implement.

One best practice we've identified is to always ask: Are certain challenging features critical to your value proposition? Would investment in these features lead to a revolutionary offering, or a valuable and differentiating capability? By addressing essential challenges before MVP launch, companies can gain years of advantage on their competition. Square faced these squarely and debuted a truly revolutionary MVP. They had to structure themselves as a "mega-merchant" to help simplify the sign-up experience for new customers. This drastically reduced the barriers to adoption faced by competitors like GoPayment, which had a virtually identical value proposition. Meanwhile, Square resisted adding more than the minimal features, keeping the user experience simple. I often tell clients not to shirk the tough problems — cut the fat, not the essence.

Prototype multiple MVPs in tandem
Even in the multi-week sprints to develop an MVP, a concept can develop a strong halo effect, anchoring a startup team in a single idea. Because of previous investments and sunk costs, the group may feel that the concept is better than it actually is when compared to other possible options. The prospect of pivoting down the line can encourage entrepreneurs to pursue a passion to build without evaluating their hypotheses up front. But successful ventures don't just dive into a single direction, confident that if they're wrong they can drastically change course. The reality is that a single concept is a collection of variables expressed as a whole. Some are core to the vision, while others are educated guesses.

Sketching or mocking up experiential prototypes and then testing them with consumers or potential partners, while also explicitly jotting down your operating and business assumptions and using them to discuss the business with industry experts, allows you both to pick a promising route to invest in the development sprint and to pivot with confidence. For example, by prototyping multiple consumer experiences and business models before investing in an initial MVP, GoGo was able to launch an airline WiFi and in-flight service experience that combined the best of multiple alternative services that might be offered in flight. One might think of this approach as testing multiple MVPs in parallel. Creating multiple options in tandem creates more confidence in the core variables, which in turn means that pivots may be less drastic or disruptive later on. This approach can be applied beyond product features to business models and operating approaches as well.

Traditional linear approach:

Standard sequential pivot approach:

Recommended approach:

This kind of work can be done with a very small team, and incurs drastically less development cost than a new product version. It can also help you gauge the tradeoff between higher investments in R&D and whether more difficult features are actually necessary to the minimum viable product. Furthermore, exploring many options in a rough way allows the team to test a variety of ideas simultaneously and by summarizing the resulting insights, the team can generate a common mental model to guide future designs.

Include a strategic business model hypothesis
The entrepreneurial crowd has recently expanded its passion for technology to embrace user experience design. Embracing smart business model design is coming more slowly. Nevertheless, a hypothesis for how your business can eventually become a profit-making entity is an essential component of any MVP. The New York Times paywall is one example of this principle in action. Like many newspapers in a time of rapid change, the NYT knew its old model was broken and decided to experiment with new models. First, they experimented with requiring payment for only some features (op-eds). When this failed, the NYT used what they'd learned to launch their current paywall model, which they continue to refine.

Entrepreneurs sometimes find it easy to underestimate the pull of commitments to a venture's 1.0 instantiation and imagine a bold product innovation pipeline that ultimately never reaches fruition. Thinking about the business model early means not making sacrifices later. Is your economic model at odds with some of your stakeholders? Has someone else already tried what you're doing? Like a product feature, the idea is not to perfect the economic model prior to building the MVP, but to have some idea that the economics you are proposing will set the venture up for eventual profitability and a low-friction scaling process.

Consider and retain the passion-igniting elements
No matter how lean and agile you're running, it's the personal, passion-igniting elements that differentiate a great venture from a merely good one. Instagram, for example, stayed true to existing types of film processes, which inspired the original developers and ultimately lent the product authenticity. The simplicity and elegance of Instagram interactions drew in professional photographers, and their authenticity appealed to amateur photographers. These passion-igniting elements were ultimately worth one billion dollars to Facebook. Going the extra mile to stay true to your company's (and your own) values has the added benefit of rallying customers and employees (a much overlooked aspect of any entrepreneurial venture). One company that illustrates this principle is Revolution Foods. Their mission is to arrange for healthy cafeteria foods for schoolchildren, and they recognize that the combination of low price and proper nutrition is key to their success. It's a focused challenge, but a difficult one, which helps rally governments, employees, parents, and customers alike.

Don't get too fixated on the present market landscape
What's your venture's unique point of view on how the market will evolve or be disrupted? The market is a moving target, and often the biggest opportunities require building for emerging changes in technology, behaviors, and values. Apple continues to provide examples of how bold technical innovations can create new norms. Take Siri, for instance. Voice plug-and-play options have existed for years; Siri was an acquisition that other software or hardware providers could have purchased. So why didn't they? Most likely, other companies simply found it too challenging to imagine the necessary new consumer behaviors taking hold. Now, hardware and software providers are hustling to see how voice input can provide improved interactions — and voice seems to be a go-to tool. Once again, a single company has altered the market landscape. How will your next MVP change the future?

3 Lessons In Corporate Frugality From The Developing World

As the Western formula of sustained growth--think top-down management, expensive R&D, and highly structured innovation--loses touch, American leaders can learn from companies in the developing world.

Rather than caving in to Wall Street’s demand for short-term gains, CEOs of Western companies must boldly restructure their organizations to boost their long-term ability to continually design and deliver affordable and sustainable solutions to frugal consumers. Here are three suggestions for undertaking such systemic changes:

1) Tie Senior Management’s Compensation to Frugal Performance. It’s not enough for CEOs to adopt a frugal mindset and strive to do more with less. They must also encourage their senior managers to follow suit. One way to do that is by linking senior executives’ compensation to performance metrics aimed at driving frugality. Take the case of Ramón Mendiola Sánchez, CEO of Florida Ice & Farm Co., a large food and beverage producer and distributor in Costa Rica that is deeply committed to sustainability. In 2008, Mendiola set up a balanced scorecard with a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to track how well his companywas reducing its consumption of natural resources such as waterwhile simultaneously delivering more value to customers and other stakeholders.He linked these KPIs to his senior executives’ compensation sothey have some skin in the game: 50 percent or more of their compensationis tied to their meeting--or exceeding--these KPIs. Mendiola is leading by example--he has linked 65 percent of his own pay to the balanced scorecard that combines financial, social, and environmental KPIs to compute a ‘‘triple bottom line’’ of people, planet, and profit. This strategy has been successful: since its implementation, Florida Ice & Farm’s senior executives have found creative ways to do more with less by motivating their employees to improve manufacturingand distribution processes and help local communities better conserve natural resources. Under Mendiola’s leadership, Florida Ice & Farm has reduced the amount of water it requires to produce a liter of beverage from 12 liters to 4.9--and aims to soon further reduce it to 3.5 liters. It has also eliminated solid waste from all its operations and is well on its way to meeting its target of becoming ‘‘water neutral’’ in 2012 and ‘‘carbon neutral’’ by 2017. Meanwhile, the companyachieved a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent between 2006 and 2010--twice the industry average. Mendiola notes: ‘‘By using incentives, we motivate our employees at every level to get creative and invent frugal and sustainable ways to deliver significantly more value to all our stakeholders by using far fewer natural resources--while saving substantial amounts of money for our company.’’

2) Senior Management Must Challenge R&D to Do More with Less. The recession is forcing many Western CEOs to cut their R&D spending with the hope of increasing their innovation performance at lower cost. But this will happen only when engineers and scientists are offered challenging projects that give them the incentive to do more with less. For instance, in the late 1990s, Louis Schweitzer--former CEO of the French carmaker Renault--visited Russia, where he found that low-cost domestic cars like the Lada--that cost merely 6,000 Euros ($7,800)--were outselling his company’s 12,000 Euros ($15,600) cars. Following this visit, Schweitzer challenged his R&D team to come up with a modern, reliable, and affordable car for less than 6,000 Euros. As Schweitzer recalls: ‘‘Seeing those antiquated cars, I found it unacceptable that technical progress should stop you from making a good car for 6,000 Euros. I drew up a list of specifications in three words--modern, reliable and affordable--and added that everything else was negotiable.’’ The result was the Logan, a no-frills car priced at 5,000 Euros, which, since its 2004 launch, has become Renault’s cash cow across recession-wary European markets as well as in many developing economies. Interestingly, Schweitzer’s successor Carlos Ghosn--who coined the term ‘‘frugal engineering’’ in 2006--is now pushing Renault’s R&D team in France to do even more with less to compete effectively with low-cost carmakers from emerging market such as Tata Motors (which developed the $2,000 Nano).

3) Marketing Executives Should Create Separate Brands for Their Affordable Offerings. To avoid brand dilution, Western companies need to create distinct brands for distinct segments. Given that they might already have well-established brands for higher-priced segments, they should develop distinctive new brands for their affordable segments. Doing so will reduce the problems of brand dilution while ensuring greater market coverage. For instance, the Starwood Group opened two affordable but chic hotel chains--Aloft and Element--to cater to value-conscious consumers. Similarly, in an attempt to reach mainstream consumers, high-end designer Vera Wang has recently adopted a three-tiered branding approach: the top tier includes her pricey luxury bridal wear, the middle tier is made up of her eponymous line sold at accessible prices, and the bottom tier includes casual budget-priced brands--such as Simply Vera--that are selling like hotcakes through mass-market retailers like Kohl’s.

4) Create incentive systems for salespeople to sell affordable products. Western companies must recognize that jugaad innovation ("jugaad" is a Hindi word meaning an innovative fix, or an improvised solution born from ingenuity and cleverness) isn’t just about designing affordable products. It is also about successfullyselling these products in the marketplace. But successful selling won’thappen as long as salespeople have the incentive to sell only big-ticket items. Instead, companies will have to align their sales force’s incentive systems with the corporate strategy of doing more with less. Companies can address this issue by reorganizing their sales force along brand lines,with different salespeople responsible for the low-end and high-end segments. This will also help reduce any internal resistance based on the fear of cannibalization. 

Even better, healthy internal competitionbetween divisions could drive sales and marketing personnel responsible for different brands to be more innovative in how their reach and keep their respective customers. Consider that for decades Procter & Gamble maintained a homogeneous sales structure, selling premium products to mainstream middle-class consumers. But as the purchasing power of middle-class Americans declines, P&G has restructured its salesforce into two distinct groups that separately target high-income and low-income segments.

To compete in the coming age of scarcity, Western CEOs must boldly revamp their companies’ R&D approaches, business models, and incentive systems for sales and marketing--all of which were designed for success in the age of abundance. In doing so, they can create and sustain a frugal culture in their organization that espouses ‘‘doing more with less’’ as its core value. 

Reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth by Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu and Simone Ahuja. Copyright (c) 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Image: Flickr user Stuck In Customs]

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