"Funky Business" is definitely worth reading.

Few people would recognize Kjell A. Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale as professors from the Stockholm School of Economics: shaved heads and hip black outfits have become their trademark appearance. The two Swedes prefer not to be called lecturers and instead call themselves funksters who give “gigs” not lectures.

They are the authors of Funky Business, an unconventional business textbook proclaiming that Marx’ statement “Power to the people” is truer than ever today. They remind us that it’s individuals, employees and consumers that rule in the global market economy, and that intellectual capital is a corporations’ most valuable asset.

"Traditional roles, jobs, skills, ways of doing things, insights, strategies, aspirations, fears, and expectations no longer count. In this environment, we cannot have business as usual. We need business as unusual. We need different business. We need innovative business. We need unpredictable business. We need surprising business. We need funky business," write the Swedish professors in their book.

One of the authors, Kjell Nordstrom, presented the second Russian edition of Funky Business. Talent Makes Capital Dance, to a group of managers, students, and journalists recently at the Presidential Hotel. The presentation was organized by Stockholm School of Economics and the International Center for Financial and Economic Development .

Nordstrom began his Moscow gig by playing a track from a CD featuring a sermon by John Paul II, rap-style. If such a ‘moderately’ conservative organization as the Vatican can change with the times, the rest of us can, too, he said.

He appeared to be puzzled by the success of Funky Business: “I did research for thirteen years, and nobody called except for my mother. And then we wrote this book that is now translated into 29 languages. So now I ask myself: what happened? What my colleague and I have done is to take the economic mambo-jumbo, the language of economics and business, and say things in a clear way… Business schools have become quite technical and introvert and they use language which no one speaks - you need to be a professor to understand it. We tried to take all that away and talk straight.

“The second thing we do: we do not restrict ourselves to economics and business. We bring in things from psychology, anthropology, and the social sciences. We bring in everything. And it helps. And that I think that is what’s a little bit different about the book: But it’s a guess,” he added.

The main focus of the book is how businesses can survive under the conditions of a global economy where technologies, people, ideas, information and capital travel freely and the competition is fierce. Nordstrom and Ridderstrale claim that the key to success is being different. Bureaucracies and hierarchies are things of the past and companies capable of attracting media attention, the best designers and human resources, will hold out. “Average anything in our time is not a good idea,” Nordstrom said.

In their book Funky Business Nordstrom and Ridderstrale describe a company Funky, Inc., modeled after the principles they preach. It “isn't like any other company. It is not a dull, old conglomerate. It is not a rigid bureaucracy. It is an organization that actually thrives on the changing circumstances and unpredictability of our times.” Nordstrom said the principles are universal and can be applied anywhere in the world. “Most of us move in the same direction. We just move at a different pace. Some faster than others due to cultural differences and historical reasons,” he explained.

Andrei Solntsev of a 170-strong Russian roofing company Unikma confirmed the universality of the book’s ideas, saying that Funky Business is mandatory reading during their two-month employee training program and that employees are quizzed about the text in their final aptitude test.

"Funky Business" is definitely worth reading. The book serves as an eye-opener on the new economy and provides for an enjoyable, albeit challenging, read — supplementing economic facts and figures with colorful quotes from John Lennon, British band The Prodigy, and Karl Marx.