Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2010
  • Book

Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd

By: Youngme Moon
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Every few years a book-through a combination of the author's unique voice, storytelling ability, spirit, and insight-simply breaks the mold. Youngme Moon's DIFFERENT is that kind of book, a book for "people who don't read business books...," a book that feels like an intimate conversation with a friend who has thought deeply about how the world works, and who inspires you to look at that world with new clarity. If there is one strain of conventional wisdom pervading every company in every industry, it is the importance of competing hard to differentiate yourself from the competition. And yet going head-to-head with the competition-with respect to features, product augmentations, and so on-has the perverse effect of making you just like everyone else. Youngme's message is simple: Get off the competitive treadmill that's taking you nowhere. Aspire to offer the world something that is meaningfully different—different in a manner that is both fundamental and comprehensive. Along the way, this award-winning teacher and scholar draws on lessons from her research, her case studies on companies such as IKEA and Google, and her experiences in the classroom to weave stories of iconoclasm and nonconformity, of imagination and delight. The result is a breathtakingly astute deconstruction of the strange and wonderful culture in which we live and consume..., a take on differentiation unlike any other found in business today. DIFFERENT shows how to succeed in a world where conformity reigns... but exceptions rule. It is also a stirring reminder of something that we too often forget: That business is, at heart, a profoundly human endeavor... which means that an essential requirement for any businessperson—in any market, in any economy—is an acute sensitivity to what makes us all spin.

Keywords

Communication Intention and Meaning; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Creativity; Competition

Citation

Moon, Youngme. Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd. Crown, 2010.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Purchase

About The Author

Youngme Moon

General Management
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • November 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Team Liquid: Fueling the Business of Fandom

    By: Youngme Moon and Kerry Herman
    • January 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Duolingo: Teaching Languages to the Masses

    By: Youngme Moon
    • July 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Bringing Ideas to Life: The Story of Paul English

    By: Youngme Moon, Frances X. Frei and F. Katelynn Boland
More from the Author
  • Team Liquid: Fueling the Business of Fandom By: Youngme Moon and Kerry Herman
  • Duolingo: Teaching Languages to the Masses By: Youngme Moon
  • Bringing Ideas to Life: The Story of Paul English By: Youngme Moon, Frances X. Frei and F. Katelynn Boland
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.