What do most of the technical and business innovations of the past 200 years have in common? Moshe Yudkowsky says the answer is simple: disaggregation.

Disaggregation means taking things apart-for example, the break-up of AT&T, wich vastly improved phone service in every way. But there more subtle examples. Digital music doesn't rely on records, tapes, CDs; digital photographs don't require ink or paper; and digital movies don't need film. This disaggregation of information from the storage medium has enabled millions of people to create and share their work (and others') far more easily than ever before, with truly enormous implications.

Yudkowsky details exactly how disaggregation works, describing five different ways of taking things apart, the many benefits of disaggregation, and how to use disaggregation to develop new innovations. The book is filled with dozens of examples from the past 200 years demonstrating that some of the most important innovations in history-interchangeable parts, the automobile, personal computers-were actually examples of disaggregation in action.

The Pebble and the Avalanche also offers strategies for successfully adapting to a disaggregation revolution, and explores the futility and serious consequences of trying to suppress disaggregation, again using actual examples. And Yudkowsky points to be comple tely transformed by disaggregation.

JOE FRODSHAM, an accomplished executive in the field of leadership, and organiza-tion development, is Corporate Director of Leadership and Professional Development at Whirlpool Corporation. He has led global change initiatives at Compaq Corporation, has consulted across various industries with Anderson Consulting, and speaks and writes for such organiza-tions as Linkage Incorporated, the American Productivity and Quality Center , and the Center for Creative Leadership.

BILL GARGIULO has successfully shaped a twenty-year human resource career at Whirlpool Corporation, where he is currently Global Director of Talent Management and Organizational Effectiveness. A true multicultural leader, he speaks several languages and draws insight from a childhood spent on five continents. Together, Frodsham and Gargiul helped lead Whirlool to place among the Top 20 Companies for Leaders, awarded by CEO magazine.