Rick Mitchell – författare

Managing innovation is like competing in an Olympic Pentathlon—excellent performance in one sport will not win you the medal. This textbook explores how top performance in 5 key areas—ideation, prioritization, implementation, strategy, and people and organization—is essential to success in today’s ever-changing business landscape.Structured around the authors’ original Innovation Pentathlon framework, the book explains what innovation is, why it is important and how it can be managed. Built upon the authors’ extensive experience and with case studies covering companies from Tetley Tea to Singapore Airlines, this is a vital resource for students aiming to succeed in both their academic and professional lives. New to this edition:- Embedded critical reflections on all aspects of management combined with practical ‘management recommendations’, ensuring the textbook is highly relevant to current practicing managers while preparing students for their management careers post-study.- Extended chapter on innovation management in the service industries to reflect the increased importance of this sector. With a careful balance of both theory and practice, an improved structure and a new and updated companion website, this is the essential companion for upper-level undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA students of innovation management.

Managing innovation is like competing in an Olympic Pentathlon—excellent performance in one sport will not win you the medal. This textbook explores how top performance in 5 key areas—ideation, prioritization, implementation, strategy, and people and organization—is essential to success in today’s ever-changing business landscape.Structured around the authors’ original Innovation Pentathlon framework, the book explains what innovation is, why it is important and how it can be managed. Built upon the authors’ extensive experience and with case studies covering companies from Tetley Tea to Singapore Airlines, this is a vital resource for students aiming to succeed in both their academic and professional lives. New to this edition:- Embedded critical reflections on all aspects of management combined with practical ‘management recommendations’, ensuring the textbook is highly relevant to current practicing managers while preparing students for their management careers post-study.- Extended chapter on innovation management in the service industries to reflect the increased importance of this sector. With a careful balance of both theory and practice, an improved structure and a new and updated companion website, this is the essential companion for upper-level undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA students of innovation management.

When it comes to Texas honky-tonk, nobody knows the music or the scene better than Johnny Bush. Author of Willie Nelson's classic concert anthem "Whiskey River," and singer of hits such as "You Gave Me a Mountain," "Undo the Right," "Jim, Jack and Rose," and "I'll Be There," Johnny Bush is a legend in country music, a singer-songwriter who has lived the cheatin', hurtin', hard-drinkin' life and recorded some of the most heart-wrenching songs about it. He has one of the purest honky-tonk voices ever to come out of Texas. And Bush's career has been just as dramatic as his songs-on the verge of achieving superstardom in the early 1970s, he was sidelined by a rare vocal disorder that he combated for thirty years. But, survivor that he is, Bush is once again filling dance halls across Texas and inspiring a new generation of musicians who crave the authenticity-the "pure D" country-that Johnny Bush has always had and that Nashville country music has lost.In Whiskey River (Take My Mind), Johnny Bush tells the twin stories of his life and of Texas honky-tonk music. He recalls growing up poor in Houston's Kashmere Gardens neighborhood and learning his chops in honky-tonks around Houston and San Antonio-places where chicken wire protected the bandstand and deadly fights broke out regularly. Bush vividly describes life on the road in the 1960s as a band member for Ray Price and Willie Nelson, including the booze, drugs, and one-night stands that fueled his songs but destroyed his first three marriages. He remembers the time in the early 1970s when he was hotter than Willie and on the fast track to superstardom-until spasmodic dysphonia forced his career into the slow lane. Bush describes his agonizing, but ultimately successful struggle to keep performing and rebuild his fan base, as well as the hard-won happiness he has found in his personal life.Woven throughout Bush's autobiography is the never-before-told story of Texas honky-tonk music, from Bob Wills and Floyd Tillman to Junior Brown and Pat Green. Johnny Bush has known almost all the great musicians, past and present, and he has wonderful stories to tell. Likewise, he offers shrewd observations on how the music business has changed since he started performing in the 1950s-and pulls no punches in saying how Nashville music has lost its country soul. For everyone who loves genuine country music, Johnny Bush, Willie Nelson, and stories of triumph against all odds, Whiskey River (Take My Mind) is a must-read.

Learn how to write and give a flawlessly funny speech for any occasion with Emmy-winning comedy writers Carol Leifer and Rick Mitchell. With a foreword by Carol Burnett.Giving a speech about someone is hard. Giving a funny speech that people are actually going to pay attention to is even harder. In How to Write a Funny Speech for a Wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Graduation & Every Other Event You Didn’t Want to Go to in the First Place, Leifer and Mitchell will teach you how to write the perfect speech so you can look awesome, make some people laugh, and get it over with.Quick and easy to use, this book is broken into short chapters full of priceless tips and advice. Leifer and Mitchell will walk you through how to: Properly write, phrase, and deliver your speech so you not only flatter your subject but also keep the rest of the audience interested (and maybe you’ll even get a standing ovation, but we can’t guarantee that—that would be cool, though, right?). Nail down how to get started so people actually pay attention to you (in a good way). Figure out how to deliver and perfect comedic nuances with a crash course in what you should and shouldn't say so you don't scare the compression socks off grandma. Hear from these seasoned comedy writers as they dish out public speaking advice that will make you look like you totally do this all the time. Take a closer look at a handful of successful real‑life speeches from real‑life people, annotated for a better understanding of why other people were better than you so you can be better than them. Enjoy bonus content like Carmela's retirement toast to Tony Soprano and Homer Simpson’s speech at Bart’s graduation. And if, in the end, you still have no idea what to say about your niece at her Bat Mitzvah, there’s a handy fill-in speech template at the back so you can spend more time figuring out what you’re going to wear.  Happy writing!Perfect for: Anybody who needs to write a speech celebrating a friend, family member, or couple      Best men and maids/matrons of honor for weddings or vow renewals  Family and friends of graduates, retirees, or honorees Bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah celebrants

This play, which contains biographical information relating to Herman Melville, is fundamentally an exploration of the ways in which these two things take place. The play admits the truth of Walter Benjamin's view of history as 'time filled by the presence of the now'. Parallels between past and present (e.g., racism, domestic abuse, and the plight of the visionary American artist) are clearly implied, but the play also utilizes new technologies, in particular video, in order to represent the kind of dialectical history and representation promoted by Benjamin. During Melville's lifetime, and in his own creative imagination, the archaic was undergoing its transformation into modernity. Thus Melville is an especially apt subject for an exploration of modernity and representation that utilizes both the modern – i.e., video, montage – and elements of the archaic – i.e., the performing body, allusions to whaling, 'discovery' in the South Seas. The Composition of Herman Melville utilizes performance strategies in an effort to embody the complex textuality of a writer who haunts the landscape of America, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. This book is believed to represent the only work of historical fiction – albeit in dramatic form – that focuses primarily on Herman Melville, considered by many to be America's greatest writer.

Bertolt Brecht, perhaps the most important dramatist/director/theorist of the twentieth century, is still widely studied and his plays and theories remain staples in the curricula of university theatre departments, literature departments, and theatre-artist training programs throughout the world. Additionally, productions of Brecht's dramas continue to be popular. The play Brecht in L.A. focuses on Brecht's life in America, where he resided from 1941 through 1947.Additionally, Brecht in L.A., winner of the 2002 SWTA National New Play Contest (US), is already a critically acclaimed play, which suggests that the work has the potential to be widely (and successfully) produced. And such productions will enhance the marketability of the book. A play influenced by Brecht is, in itself, not unique, since many leading, contemporary dramatists--such as Caryl Churchill, Edward Bond, Tony Kushner, Heiner Muller, and Howard Barker--have been affected by Brechtian dramaturgy. But a Brechtian-influenced play with Brecht as the lead character is unique. The play represents the only dramatic work in English which features Brecht himself as the title character.Brecht in L.A., centering on Brecht while adapting/critiquing Brechtian dramatic form, also provides a unique opportunity for the instructor who is teaching Brechtian theatre since--with just one text (which will includes endnotes and appendices)--the instructor can cover epic theatre, the "Brecht debate," Brecht's biography, and contradictions between Brecht's theatrical practices and his everyday life.The book's wide-ranging audience will include theatre artists; playgoers; students of drama, theatre, English, and performance studies; scholars; and readers interested in Brecht, Hollywood, and/or biography. Brecht in L.A. will also be an important addition to the considerable collections of books about Brecht which are carried by countless libraries.