Press Releases
From Rod Beckstrom - The Starfish and The Spider
Media Contact: Sandra Borland sandra@beckstrom.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
What do al Queda, Craigslist, and Napster have in common?
Rod Beckström reveals all in his best-seller, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
PALO ALTO, CA—According to Rod Beckström, successful start-up entrepreneur, Fulbright Scholar and award-winning author, there’s a revolution raging all around us. In many arenas, a lack of traditional leadership is giving rise to powerful groups, such as al Queda, Craigslist and Napster, that are turning industry and society upside down.
Beckström likens these groups to a starfish, and says that businesses, institutions, governments and individuals (exemplified by the spider) must realize that starfish and spiders may look alike, but starfish have a powerful and miraculous quality. Cut off a spider’s leg and you have a seven-legged creature; cut off its head and it dies. But cut off the arm of a starfish and it grows a new one. Plus its severed arm is capable of generating an entirely new body.
Today starfish organizations are taking society and the business world by storm—changing the rules of strategy, engagement and competition. In The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, Beckström and co-author Ori Brafman give many examples of how decentralized starfish-like organizations are gaining the upper hand over the traditional, top-down, spider-like organizations with a clear hierarchy that we are accustomed to.
Beckström can tell your audience:
- How Toyota has leveraged starfish principles to dominate spider-like rivals GM and Ford
- How tiny Napster dealt crippling blows to the mega global music industry
- How free, community-based Wikipedia is overtaking Encyclopedia Britannica at record speed
- Why al Queda is flourishing despite continual military attacks
- Why small, unassuming Craigslist is forcing the global newspaper industry to restructure their revenue models
Beckström is a compelling speaker who has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, BBC, C-SPAN, and FOX News. He earned his BA and MBA at Stanford University. As founder, CEO and Chairman of CATS Software, a global derivatives and risk management software company, he led the company through its successful IPO to become a market-leading public company. He has served on various private and nonprofit boards, including Environmental Defense, Jamii Bora of Africa Ltd., and Global Peace Networks, and recently Chaired the Global Climate Change Summit for 350 CEO’s
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations was listed #4 in amazon.com’s Top 10 Editors’ Picks: Business in 2006. The books has been favorably reviewed in Newsweek, Business Week, U.S. News and World Report, Fast Company, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, The Washington Post, and more.
Your listeners would benefit greatly from Beckström’s insights. He’s a very informative and entertaining guest who will have your phones ringing off the hook. Call now to book Rod Beckström.
Call Violet Ciere at 615 - 279- 0108 violet@beckstrom.org to schedule an interview or request a review copy or media kit. For more information go to beckstrom.com.
TWIKI.NET Media Contact:
Joan Stone
CXO Communication
650.224.8733
650.462.2968
joan@cxocommunication.com
Industry Leading Open Source Enterprise Wiki Hits the Commercial Market
with Customers, Community Support and Proven ProductSAN FRANCISCO, CA – AUGUST 7, 2007 – TWIKI.NET, a company founded by Rod Beckström and Peter Thoeny, launched today at Linux World. TWIKI.NET is offering a professional, certified version of TWiki, the leading open source, enterprise wiki with more than two million users and 60,000 installations worldwide. Over the past few years, wikis have evolved from just powering consumer websites to becoming critical systems inside the enterprise. Companies and organizations of all sizes use wikis as communication and collaboration tools. TWiki enables business users to easily and quickly develop custom business applications such as project management, development, marketing, sales, service and other vertical market functions. TWiki also provides users the ability to publish content, collaborate over distance and time, and integration with key business systems. “TWIKI.NET is changing the game on how an enterprise wiki advances business communication and collaboration,” said Rod Beckström, TWIKI.NET’s chairman, co-founder and chief catalyst. “We’re excited about the customer and partner momentum the company has already garnered as well as the opportunity to work with the 30,000 TWiki developers committed to growing the community.”
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TWIKI.NET will provide premium support to a tested, reliable and secure version of TWiki. “We’re adding a professional company to a proven software platform so Fortune 500 companies and organizations of all sizes can feel safe, supported and secure while also accessing the innovation and flexibility of the TWiki solution,” added Beckström. Beckström and Thoeny, TWIKI.NET’s CTO, founded TWIKI.NET to help foster the further adoption of TWiki and its community. Thoeny created the TWiki product in 1998 and has since been an active leader of the TWiki.org community. Beckström founded CATS Software and took it public and has co-founded several other successful software companies. Beckström also recently co-authored best-seller, “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.”
TWiki Momentum
According to the open source website, www.twiki.org, TWiki has been adopted in more than 100 countries by prestigious users from companies and organizations such as Caltech, Cisco Systems, Harvard University, IIT India, MIT, Morgan Stanley, Motorola, Nokia, Stanford University, Sun Microsystems, University of Shanghai, Wind River Systems, Yahoo! and at least 300 of the Fortune 500 companies.
“Although TWiki has received no previous marketing or professional service support, as an excellent open source product it has spread in a viral fashion and has become nearly ubiquitous in major technology firms in Silicon Valley and beyond,” commented Peter Thoeny, TWIKI.NET co-founder and chief technology officer.
"Wind River utilizes TWiki as a fundamental platform across its business every day," said Barry Mainz, COO of Wind River Systems, Inc. "Employees are using it as a productivity and communication tool in many group settings including development, customer service, human resources, marketing and finance. We view TWiki as a mission-critical collaboration platform integral to our company's success.”
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"There are many people at Motorola actively using TWiki for ISO 9000 compliancy, reporting, project management and other applications," said Kenneth Lavrsen, engineering manager at Motorola. "As an active member of the TWiki.org community, I am extremely supportive of Peter and the team at TWIKI.NET and look forward to continuing to participate in the community."
"At Nokia we are always looking for new and improved ways of communicating," said Harri Lakkala, Social Software Expert at Nokia. "In use since 2002, TWiki has developed inside Nokia into a valuable tool for team collaboration, sharing of ideas and promoting innovation."The company is currently offering TWIKI.NET Subscription Agreements, which provide automatic updates; support and other value add features, priced for both small workgroups and large enterprises. TWIKI.NET Subscription Agreements start at $995 per year for 10 workgroup users. Enterprise-level pricing is also available. The certified product can be downloaded at www.twiki.net.
The company signed its first paying clients before closing its Series A financing round on May 25, 2007.
About TWIKI.NET
TWIKI.NET is committed to cultivating and advancing TWiki as the leading open source enterprise wiki. TWiki currently serves as a communication and collaboration software platform in thousands of enterprises and organizations with millions of users across 130 countries in 14 languages. For more information, please visit www.twiki.net.
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