Product review (5 stars): Review: The Necessity of Strangers
I am a believer in Alan Gregerman.  I have enjoyed his blogs, lectures and books for several years.  Alan offers fun and practical guidance on not only getting the most out of our work, but out of our lives.

Alan encourages us to get out of the comfort zone.  When faced with an urgent problem, most of us buckle down, bring in our closest advisors, lock the doors, order in dinner and make very important decisions.  Alan argues that we need to get out of the office, walk around and see what other great companies are doing.

Why?  In his latest offering, Alan reminds us the importance of strangers in our lives and the companies and organizations where we work.  In this Facebook world we live in, where many of us may have thousands of friends, Alan reminds us that friends can only get us so far..they are often reflections of ourselves.  While these might be comforting in a scary, for us to grow we must get out of the comfort zone in order to reach  our full potential?

We are a society that worships great ideas and often think that you must be brilliant like a Jobs or Zuckerberg.  Alan reminds us that most great ideas are borrowed from strangers and that the answers to our problem might be right and front of us.  He references  the Census, a process remained unchanged for nearly two centuries, and how it was improved by learning from our friends at UPS . That ITunes is merely a takeoff of The Great Library in Alexandria.  That most new drug discoveries are not being uncovered in isolated laboratories, but in faraway places that have treated these diseases for hundreds of years.

99% of all ideas embrace the brilliance in the world around us. Curiosity. Humility. Respect.  While we all cannot be brilliant, we all can be curious, humble and respectful.  It is these arrows we need in quivers to reach our full potential,