TheContent Trap

Bharat Anand is the Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in economics from Harvard University and received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University. Professor Anand is an expert in digital and corporate strategy. He has studied how new technologies affect what we watch, read and hear and how companies navigate digital change. He has written more than fifty articles and case studies, received awards for his research and case-writing and chaired various executive education programs. He is a two-time winner of the "best teacher award" at Harvard Business School. Anand has advised leading organizations and entrepreneurs around the world. Recently, he helped create Harvard Business School's digital learning initiative, HBX, which he now oversees as faculty chair.

Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To con­front these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trail­blazer Schibsted, from The New York Times to The Economist, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the lat­est research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy.
Companies that now flourish are finding that the connections they foster are more important than the content they create. Success comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers' connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors' best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole.
Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the con­tent business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dis­patches from the front lines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigat­ing the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves.