The Soft Edge

What Does it Take to Get Ahead Now—And Stay There? High performance has always required shrewd strategy and superb execution. These factors remain critical, especially given today’s unprecedented business climate. But Rich Karlgaard—Forbes publisher, entrepreneur, investor, and board director—takes a surprising turn and argues that there is now a third element that’s required for competitive advantage. It fosters innovation, it accelerates strategy and execution, and it cannot be copied or bought. It is found in a perhaps surprising place—your company’s values. Karlgaard examined a variety of enduring companies and found that they have one thing in common; all have leveraged their deepest values alongside strategy and execution, allowing them to fuel growth as well as weather hard times. Karlgaard shares these stories and identifies the five key variables that make up every organization’s “soft edge”: Trust: Northwestern Mutual has built a $25 million dollar revenue juggernaut on trust, the foundation of lasting success. Learn how to create an environment that engenders trust and propels high performance. Smarts: In most technical fields your formal education quickly becomes out of date. How do you keep up? Learn how the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University women’s basketball team, and others stay on top by relentlessly pursuing an advantage through smarts. Teamwork: Since collaboration and innovation are a must in the global economy, effective teamwork is vital. Learn how global giant FedEx stays focused and how nimble Nest Labs relies on lean teams with cognitive diversity. Taste: Clever product design and integration are proxies for intelligence because they make customers feel smart. But taste goes further into deep emotional engagement. Specialized Bicycles calls it “the elusive spot between data truth and human truth.” How can you consistently make products or services that trigger these emotional touch points? Story: Companies that achieve lasting success have an enduring and emotionally appealing story. What’s your company’s story? How do you tell it your way? Gain the ability to create a powerful narrative in a world where outsiders often exercise the louder voice.

Explores theories on the evolution of technology, the effects that human choice has on this revolution, and what's in store in the future.

The summary of The Soft Edge – Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success presented here include a short review of the book at the start followed by quick overview of main points and a list of important take-aways at the end of the summary. The Summary of This book was published in 2014 and discusses the "human side" of business, also known as the "soft edge," of the industry. Your business requires something additional, such as more creativity and flexibility, as well as more passion, if you do not want to be left floundering in the wake of your competitors. The soft edge is the source of such qualities and characteristics. Finding the "soft edge" of your business may initially appear difficult, but keep in mind that doing so is absolutely necessary in order to achieve sustained success. The Soft Edge summary includes the key points and important takeaways from the book The Soft Edge by Rich Karlgaard. Disclaimer: 1. This summary is meant to preview and not to substitute the original book. 2. We recommend, for in-depth study purchase the excellent original book. 3. In this summary key points are rewritten and recreated and no part/text is directly taken or copied from original book. 4. If original author/publisher wants us to remove this summary, please contact us at [email protected].

What Does it Take to Get Ahead Now—And Stay There? High performance has always required shrewd strategy and superb execution. These factors remain critical, especially given today’s unprecedented business climate. But Rich Karlgaard—Forbes publisher, entrepreneur, investor, and board director—takes a surprising turn and argues that there is now a third element that’s required for competitive advantage. It fosters innovation, it accelerates strategy and execution, and it cannot be copied or bought. It is found in a perhaps surprising place—your company’s values. Karlgaard examined a variety of enduring companies and found that they have one thing in common; all have leveraged their deepest values alongside strategy and execution, allowing them to fuel growth as well as weather hard times. Karlgaard shares these stories and identifies the five key variables that make up every organization’s “soft edge”: Trust: Northwestern Mutual has built a $25 million dollar revenue juggernaut on trust, the foundation of lasting success. Learn how to create an environment that engenders trust and propels high performance. Smarts: In most technical fields your formal education quickly becomes out of date. How do you keep up? Learn how the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University women’s basketball team, and others stay on top by relentlessly pursuing an advantage through smarts. Teamwork: Since collaboration and innovation are a must in the global economy, effective teamwork is vital. Learn how global giant FedEx stays focused and how nimble Nest Labs relies on lean teams with cognitive diversity. Taste: Clever product design and integration are proxies for intelligence because they make customers feel smart. But taste goes further into deep emotional engagement. Specialized Bicycles calls it “the elusive spot between data truth and human truth.” How can you consistently make products or services that trigger these emotional touch points? Story: Companies that achieve lasting success have an enduring and emotionally appealing story. What’s your company’s story? How do you tell it your way? Gain the ability to create a powerful narrative in a world where outsiders often exercise the louder voice.

The seven-volume set LNCS 12261, 12262, 12263, 12264, 12265, 12266, and 12267 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2020, held in Lima, Peru, in October 2020. The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 542 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 1809 submissions in a double-blind review process. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: Part I: machine learning methodologies Part II: image reconstruction; prediction and diagnosis; cross-domain methods and reconstruction; domain adaptation; machine learning applications; generative adversarial networks Part III: CAI applications; image registration; instrumentation and surgical phase detection; navigation and visualization; ultrasound imaging; video image analysis Part IV: segmentation; shape models and landmark detection Part V: biological, optical, microscopic imaging; cell segmentation and stain normalization; histopathology image analysis; opthalmology Part VI: angiography and vessel analysis; breast imaging; colonoscopy; dermatology; fetal imaging; heart and lung imaging; musculoskeletal imaging Part VI: brain development and atlases; DWI and tractography; functional brain networks; neuroimaging; positron emission tomography