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Seth Godin asks the question "why haven’t you and your team launched as many Purple Cows as you’d like?" and answers it: "Fear". People would rather do the familiar things, and have an acceptable way of failing than risk blame for failing with something different. (Ironic that "fear" only appears once in the wiki page AnAcceptableWayOfFailing that I just linked to. Go to FindPage and search for pages containing the word 'fear'.)

Ricard Semler's Semco does everything that other companies fear: there have no managers and no official hierarchy, employees set their own salaries and hours, there is no "core business". Semler says that sticking to a "core business" artificially limits where they can find profits. (Why do most companies avoid branching out into multiple fields? Fear.)

Seth writes books about marketing. He champions creating cheap but thoughtful innovations in products, services, and marketing that customers appreciate. But the interesting thing about his book Free Prize Inside! is that half of the book is teaching you, the reader, how to be a change agent in order to get your marketing ideas accepted within your own company. Get this book to learn how to get your company beyond the fear of the new and unfamiliar.