Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you're on a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Of course, there are other strategies. You can change riders. You can get a committee to study the dead horse. You can benchmark how other companies ride dead horses. You can declare that it's cheaper to feed a dead horse. You can harness several dead horses together. But after you've tried all these things, you're still going to have to dismount.

Great accomplishments start with great aspirations.

Most of us do more than subsist. From the vantage point of our ancestors, we live lives of almost unimaginable ease. Here again, we have innovation to thank.

Competition for the future is competition to create and dominate emerging opportunities-to stake out new competitive space. Creating the future is more challenging than playing catch up, in that you have to create your own roadmap.

Taking risks, breaking the rules, and being a maverick have always been important but today they are more crucial than ever.

Organizational structures of today demand too much from a few, and not much at all from everyone else.

Online hierarchies are inherently dynamic. The moment someone stops adding value to the community, his influence starts to wane.