Successful innovation demands more than a good strategic plan; it requires creative improvisation. Much of the "Serious Play" that leads to breakthrough innovations is increasingly linked to experiments with models, prototypes, and simulations, according to Michael Schrage, author of Serious Play. Schrage is one of today's most widely recognized experts on the relationship between technology and work.
   Schrage believes that the real value in building models comes less from the help they offer with troubleshooting and problem solving than from the insights they reveal about the organization itself: technological models can actually change us - improving the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, and innovate. Using real life examples, Schrage shows how companies such as Disney, Microsoft, Boeing, IDEO, and DaimlerChrysler use  Serious Play with modeling technologies to facilitate the collaborative team interactions that lead to innovation. Schrage is also a research associate at the MIT Media Lab, a Merrill Lynch Forum Innovation Fellow, and a columnist for FORTUNE magazine.

   Multicultural Manners is an etiquette book for effective cross-cultural communication in business as well as personal relationships. Author Norine Dresser focuses on communication with recent US immigrants, particularly those from Asia and Latin America, rather than those who have been here for generations. She covers a wide range of issues: food, time, body language, male-female relations, classroom behavior, and verbal expressions. The text provides the necessary information, the perfect words to say, and the correct behavior to use in many common cross-cultural situations, and detailed tips on avoiding embarrassment at work, in the classroom, at meals, and at weddings and funerals. Dresser is also a columnist for the LA Times and a former UCLA professor. Her latest book is Multi-Cultural Celebrations: Today's Rules of Etiquette for Life's Special Occasions.