Radical globalization, technological and economic change, and environmental pressures are revolutionizing cultural norms, generating powerful new opportunities for disruptive innovation. The techniques of ethnography are invaluable for innovators who need to make sense of today's ambiguities and chaos. Now, learn to apply these techniques, and integrate ethnography into a complete innovation framework that works.

 

Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next,Sarah Rottenberg shows how to use applied ethnographic methods to identify "white spaces": new, disruptive opportunities for innovation created by changing cultural norms. First, Rottenberg shows how to plan your ethnographic research: recruiting the right people, observing the right activities, and asking the right questions. Next, you'll learn how to follow the trails your participants lay down, wherever they lead — even when things get emotionally intense. Finally, you'll learn how to combine highly analytic techniques with those that prioritize your intuitive sensemaking, giving yourself multiple chances to see the world in new ways.

 

Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator — and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

Sarah Rottenberg is the Associate Director of the Integrated Product Design Master's Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Lecturer in its School of Design. She trains clients in design research methodologies and helps teams design products, experiences, and businesses that are desirable, meaningful, feasible, and viable. Formerly a design researcher at Doblin and a Directing Associate at Jump Associates, she holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, where she studied anthropology; and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Most great opportunities fail. The #1 reason: companies can''t effectively scope their best opportunities. Scoping is where failure rates are highest. Now, discover how to use design thinking to radically improve the way you scope opportunities, and integrate opportunity development into a complete innovation framework that works.

 

Design Process and Opportunity Development is part of Philadelphia University''s breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, Tod Corlett drills down to focus specifically on using team-based design thinking to clarify your challenges, articulate your value propositions, and reach new markets. You''ll learn why design processes are so well-suited to today''s fast-moving world of diverse teams, accelerated product life cycles, disruptive innovation, and social media – and how to apply them in your environment. Corlett shows how to rapidly iterate and improve your ideas… use helical thinking to move forward, not "in circles"… and use funnels to consistently select your best conceptual options.

 

Design Process and Opportunity Development is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today''s most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

Tod Corlett, Associate Professor of Industrial Design at Philadelphia University, directs its Master of Science in Industrial Design program, and oversees its innovation-research and technology initiatives. Previously an award-winning lead designer for Cloud Gehshan Associates in Philadelphia, he maintains a design practice, Public Works, focused on design for public spaces. He holds a BA from Yale University, and BFA and M.I.D. degrees from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

To successfully innovate, you must bridge the gulf between back-of-the-napkin sketches and business success. It's called "opportunity shaping": taking your ideas from theoretical greatness to real value delivery and capture. Now, learn how to successfully shape your opportunities – and how to integrate opportunity shaping into a complete innovation framework that works.

 

Value Creation through Shaping Opportunity - The Business Model is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, D. R. Widder drills down to focus specifically on the crucial opportunity shaping tasks that must be performed well in order to successfully execute on your new product, service, or venture.

 

Widder shows how to forge and reshape your idea as it contacts more of the real-world environment, reflecting feedback from customers, advisors, suppliers, stakeholders, and the competitive and macroeconomic environment. You'll learn how to use continual feedback to refine and retool… gain objectivity and highlight weak spots… systematically strengthen your idea as is moves towards the marketplace.

 

Value Creation through Shaping Opportunity - The Business Model is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

D. R. Widder, Vice President of Innovation at Philadelphia University, is a catalyst for innovation in areas such as entrepreneurship, online learning, analytics, and partnership development. His 20-year career in industry has included multiple high-tech ventures and patents spanning artificial intelligence, medical imaging, and sustainable products, as well as an entrepreneur-in-residence role at IBM. D. R. is on the executive committee of the early-stage venture investment and advisory group RVI. He holds an M.S. degree in Engineering with a focus on Applied Mathematics, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Babson College.

Healthcare presents unique challenges for innovators. Its problems are complex, and resist single-domain solutions, and require an interdisciplinary, system-level perspective. This challenges comfortable patterns of work and thought, and long-standing organizational arrangements. Now, discover a complete framework and powerful techniques for designing and implementing healthcare innovation that works.

 

Interdisciplinarity, Innovation, and Transforming Healthcare is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, Dr. James E. Stahl drills down to focus specifically on innovation in healthcare.

 

Dr. Stahl explains how to facilitate the true interdisciplinarity at the heart of healthcare innovation, rather than simply throwing people from different disciplines together and hoping for the best. He introduces key tools drawn from multiple disciplines, showing how to solve "wicked problems" by improving interaction amongst clinicians, engineers, economists, designers, social scientists, entrepreneurs, nurses, psychologists, and others. He also presents a complete case study: creating the Operating Room of the future, which required taking two ORs offline to identify, test, and prototype solutions in a real-world simulation.

 

Interdisciplinarity, Innovation, and Transforming Healthcare is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

James E. Stahl, M.D., C.M., M.P.H., is a practicing board-certified internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Senior Scientist at the MGH-Institute for Technology Assessment, Research Director for the MGH Outpatient RFID project, and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University. He is an outcomes researcher with expertise in decision science, health technology assessment, and simulation modeling. His research focuses on redesigning clinical processes, applying and implementing new technologies in the clinical environment, interdisciplinary collaboration, and ethics.

To build teams that can successfully innovate, you must understand the diverse learning styles your team will need, and how to get the best from each individual contributor. Now, discover how to successfully integrate diverse learning styles into a comprehensive, team-based innovation framework that works.

 

The Role of Learning Styles in Innovation Team Design is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, Dr. Sara Beckman drills down to focus specifically on team learning styles. You'll learn how to build a team that can smoothly navigate innovation processes, leveraging diverse skills, abilities, and styles. Beckman links phases and key activities of the innovation process directly to specific skills and styles. She offers expert guidance on designing innovation teams – and on determining who should lead each key activity, and when.

 

The Role of Learning Styles in Innovation Team Design is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

Dr. Sara Beckman, CLO of the Institute for Design Innovation, teaches design and innovation at University of California's Haas School of Business. There, she recently initiated a course on problem framing and solving that integrates approaches from critical thinking, systems thinking, and creative problem solving. Her research focuses on the value of design to business and the ability to collaborate to innovate. She also has worked at Hewlett-Packard and Booz and Co., and actively consults with several companies. She has B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University.

Heather McGowan’s widely praised first novel introduces a literary artist of consummate skill, and a narrative voice of astonishing sensitivity and sensuousness. Tracking every mercurial shift of her character’s consciousness, the result is dreamy, disquieting, and achingly alive. Schooling is a portrait of an adolescent girl, thirteen-year-old Catrine Evans, who following her mother’s death is uprooted from her home in America to an English boarding school. There she encounters classmates who sniff glue and engage in arson and instructors who make merciless fun of her accent. She also finds the sympathetic chemistry teacher Mr. Gilbert, who offers Catrine the friendship she so desperately wants–a friendship that gradually takes on sinister and obsessive overtones.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Coworkers at a legendary but troubled New York City museum struggle with issues large and small over the course of one extraordinary day in this whip-smart “marvel” (Mona Awad, bestselling author of Bunny) of a novel in the vein of The White Lotus. When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant, Chris; the museum’s trusty head of security, Shay; and its general counsel, Henry—a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last. On this day of the museum’s annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead. Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic tragicomedy that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.

Coworkers at a legendary but troubled New York City museum struggle with issues large and small over the course of one extraordinary day in this whip-smart novel that is “satirical and incisive...like nothing you’ve ready before” (Town & Country).When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four-hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant; the museum’s trusty head of security; and its general counsel—a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last. On this day of the museum’s annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead. Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic “marvel” (Mona Awad, author of Bunny) that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.

Coworkers at a legendary but troubled New York City museum struggle with issues large and small over the course of one extraordinary day in this whip-smart novel that is “satirical and incisive...like nothing you’ve ready before” (Town & Country).When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four-hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant; the museum’s trusty head of security; and its general counsel—a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last. On this day of the museum’s annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead. Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic “marvel” (Mona Awad, author of Bunny) that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.

Radical globalization, technological and economic change, and environmental pressures are revolutionizing cultural norms, generating powerful new opportunities for disruptive innovation. The techniques of ethnography are invaluable for innovators who need to make sense of today's ambiguities and chaos. Now, learn to apply these techniques, and integrate ethnography into a complete innovation framework that works.

 

Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next,Sarah Rottenberg shows how to use applied ethnographic methods to identify "white spaces": new, disruptive opportunities for innovation created by changing cultural norms. First, Rottenberg shows how to plan your ethnographic research: recruiting the right people, observing the right activities, and asking the right questions. Next, you'll learn how to follow the trails your participants lay down, wherever they lead — even when things get emotionally intense. Finally, you'll learn how to combine highly analytic techniques with those that prioritize your intuitive sensemaking, giving yourself multiple chances to see the world in new ways.

 

Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator — and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

Sarah Rottenberg is the Associate Director of the Integrated Product Design Master's Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Lecturer in its School of Design. She trains clients in design research methodologies and helps teams design products, experiences, and businesses that are desirable, meaningful, feasible, and viable. Formerly a design researcher at Doblin and a Directing Associate at Jump Associates, she holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, where she studied anthropology; and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Most great opportunities fail. The #1 reason: companies can''t effectively scope their best opportunities. Scoping is where failure rates are highest. Now, discover how to use design thinking to radically improve the way you scope opportunities, and integrate opportunity development into a complete innovation framework that works.

 

Design Process and Opportunity Development is part of Philadelphia University''s breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, Tod Corlett drills down to focus specifically on using team-based design thinking to clarify your challenges, articulate your value propositions, and reach new markets. You''ll learn why design processes are so well-suited to today''s fast-moving world of diverse teams, accelerated product life cycles, disruptive innovation, and social media – and how to apply them in your environment. Corlett shows how to rapidly iterate and improve your ideas… use helical thinking to move forward, not "in circles"… and use funnels to consistently select your best conceptual options.

 

Design Process and Opportunity Development is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today''s most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

Tod Corlett, Associate Professor of Industrial Design at Philadelphia University, directs its Master of Science in Industrial Design program, and oversees its innovation-research and technology initiatives. Previously an award-winning lead designer for Cloud Gehshan Associates in Philadelphia, he maintains a design practice, Public Works, focused on design for public spaces. He holds a BA from Yale University, and BFA and M.I.D. degrees from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

To successfully innovate, you must bridge the gulf between back-of-the-napkin sketches and business success. It's called "opportunity shaping": taking your ideas from theoretical greatness to real value delivery and capture. Now, learn how to successfully shape your opportunities – and how to integrate opportunity shaping into a complete innovation framework that works.

 

Value Creation through Shaping Opportunity - The Business Model is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, D. R. Widder drills down to focus specifically on the crucial opportunity shaping tasks that must be performed well in order to successfully execute on your new product, service, or venture.

 

Widder shows how to forge and reshape your idea as it contacts more of the real-world environment, reflecting feedback from customers, advisors, suppliers, stakeholders, and the competitive and macroeconomic environment. You'll learn how to use continual feedback to refine and retool… gain objectivity and highlight weak spots… systematically strengthen your idea as is moves towards the marketplace.

 

Value Creation through Shaping Opportunity - The Business Model is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

D. R. Widder, Vice President of Innovation at Philadelphia University, is a catalyst for innovation in areas such as entrepreneurship, online learning, analytics, and partnership development. His 20-year career in industry has included multiple high-tech ventures and patents spanning artificial intelligence, medical imaging, and sustainable products, as well as an entrepreneur-in-residence role at IBM. D. R. is on the executive committee of the early-stage venture investment and advisory group RVI. He holds an M.S. degree in Engineering with a focus on Applied Mathematics, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Babson College.

Healthcare presents unique challenges for innovators. Its problems are complex, and resist single-domain solutions, and require an interdisciplinary, system-level perspective. This challenges comfortable patterns of work and thought, and long-standing organizational arrangements. Now, discover a complete framework and powerful techniques for designing and implementing healthcare innovation that works.

 

Interdisciplinarity, Innovation, and Transforming Healthcare is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, Dr. James E. Stahl drills down to focus specifically on innovation in healthcare.

 

Dr. Stahl explains how to facilitate the true interdisciplinarity at the heart of healthcare innovation, rather than simply throwing people from different disciplines together and hoping for the best. He introduces key tools drawn from multiple disciplines, showing how to solve "wicked problems" by improving interaction amongst clinicians, engineers, economists, designers, social scientists, entrepreneurs, nurses, psychologists, and others. He also presents a complete case study: creating the Operating Room of the future, which required taking two ORs offline to identify, test, and prototype solutions in a real-world simulation.

 

Interdisciplinarity, Innovation, and Transforming Healthcare is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

James E. Stahl, M.D., C.M., M.P.H., is a practicing board-certified internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Senior Scientist at the MGH-Institute for Technology Assessment, Research Director for the MGH Outpatient RFID project, and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University. He is an outcomes researcher with expertise in decision science, health technology assessment, and simulation modeling. His research focuses on redesigning clinical processes, applying and implementing new technologies in the clinical environment, interdisciplinary collaboration, and ethics.

To build teams that can successfully innovate, you must understand the diverse learning styles your team will need, and how to get the best from each individual contributor. Now, discover how to successfully integrate diverse learning styles into a comprehensive, team-based innovation framework that works.

 

The Role of Learning Styles in Innovation Team Design is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, Dr. Sara Beckman drills down to focus specifically on team learning styles. You'll learn how to build a team that can smoothly navigate innovation processes, leveraging diverse skills, abilities, and styles. Beckman links phases and key activities of the innovation process directly to specific skills and styles. She offers expert guidance on designing innovation teams – and on determining who should lead each key activity, and when.

 

The Role of Learning Styles in Innovation Team Design is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

 

Dr. Sara Beckman, CLO of the Institute for Design Innovation, teaches design and innovation at University of California's Haas School of Business. There, she recently initiated a course on problem framing and solving that integrates approaches from critical thinking, systems thinking, and creative problem solving. Her research focuses on the value of design to business and the ability to collaborate to innovate. She also has worked at Hewlett-Packard and Booz and Co., and actively consults with several companies. She has B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University.

Heather McGowan’s widely praised first novel introduces a literary artist of consummate skill, and a narrative voice of astonishing sensitivity and sensuousness. Tracking every mercurial shift of her character’s consciousness, the result is dreamy, disquieting, and achingly alive. Schooling is a portrait of an adolescent girl, thirteen-year-old Catrine Evans, who following her mother’s death is uprooted from her home in America to an English boarding school. There she encounters classmates who sniff glue and engage in arson and instructors who make merciless fun of her accent. She also finds the sympathetic chemistry teacher Mr. Gilbert, who offers Catrine the friendship she so desperately wants–a friendship that gradually takes on sinister and obsessive overtones.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Coworkers at a legendary but troubled New York City museum struggle with issues large and small over the course of one extraordinary day in this whip-smart “marvel” (Mona Awad, bestselling author of Bunny) of a novel in the vein of The White Lotus. When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant, Chris; the museum’s trusty head of security, Shay; and its general counsel, Henry—a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last. On this day of the museum’s annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead. Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic tragicomedy that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.

Coworkers at a legendary but troubled New York City museum struggle with issues large and small over the course of one extraordinary day in this whip-smart novel that is “satirical and incisive...like nothing you’ve ready before” (Town & Country).When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four-hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant; the museum’s trusty head of security; and its general counsel—a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last. On this day of the museum’s annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead. Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic “marvel” (Mona Awad, author of Bunny) that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.

Coworkers at a legendary but troubled New York City museum struggle with issues large and small over the course of one extraordinary day in this whip-smart novel that is “satirical and incisive...like nothing you’ve ready before” (Town & Country).When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four-hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant; the museum’s trusty head of security; and its general counsel—a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last. On this day of the museum’s annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead. Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic “marvel” (Mona Awad, author of Bunny) that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.