"There’s a conviction among many sustainable agriculture advocates that the best way to move agriculture forward is to look back. The hope is to return to an exalted era in agriculture, to the kind of rural scene fit for a Rockwell painting or a Shaker Village—to food grown the old fashioned way. Breaking Through Concrete is not that, which is exactly the point. This ode to urban farming is not nostalgic (those are skyscrapers in the background, not silos), but instructive. It's a beautiful, gritty and very real portrait of the possibilities for the future of food." — Dan Barber, Executive Chef & Co-owner of Blue Hill "A road map to the future of America. A blueprint of possibilities. A book full of remarkable stories of neighborhood visionaries, stories of people who grow community in their gardens. Where others see trouble, they see food and hope." —NPR's Kitchen Sisters "Finally, a book on the full continuum of urban agriculture in America, replete with inspiring images of the people and places behind today's city-grown food. Hanson and Marty tell these stories with such admiration for their subjects you'll want to bestow hero status to city farmers." —Darrin Nordahl, author of Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture “Breaking Through Concrete will satisfy readers hungry for a broad perspective on urban agriculture. The beautiful stories and photographs of successful programs throughout North America, combined with practical ‘how to’ guides, provides a valued resource for practitioners, advocates, scholars, and gardeners.” —Laura Lawson, author of City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America

In this book the author brings together distinctive and cutting edge work based upon her own research and work with leading companies in the overlapping areas of strategy, marketing and innovation to provide a new and dynamic model to implement customer focus in enterprizes. In an environment of falling margins the model shows how to increase value to customers and improve business results.

What happens when a Navy SEAL wakes from a month-long coma to discover he’s being investigated for murder? When Ensign Brett Weaver is accused of murder, he knows he’s innocent, but how can he prove it with Naval Investigators breathing down his neck? A chance meeting with reporter Tess Kelly offers him an opportunity to get the press on his side. But can he trust her to keep his other secrets off the record? Tess works hard to live up to her father's expectations. When Brett offers her information about SEAL training in exchange for an introduction to her award-winning journalist father, she jumps at the chance. The situation Brett lobs into her father's lap is a major scoop. But the secret she discovers about Brett is just as newsworthy. Will her feelings for this wounded warrior win out, or will she release a story guaranteed to destroy Brett’s SEAL career? When Tess’s father is kidnapped, Brett’s team is deployed to find him. At the same time, a leak in the investigation puts Tess and Brett’s lives in danger. Will Brett be able to break through the lasting effects of his injuries and prove he’s once again a battle-ready SEAL? Or will he and Tess lose everything at the whim of a vengeful killer?

Customer centricity is fundamental to business growth and ongoing success. Most executives appreciate the importance of it yet don't know how to execute it or sell the processes internally. This thoroughly revised edition of Breaking Through guides readers systematically through the ten breakthrough points of implementation, to explain how to execute a transformation to customer centricity, so that a company can engage continuously with its customers, making them allies and advocates with all the rewards that it brings. With updates on digital opportunities, social media, emerging markets (including Africa), and the social as well as financial impacts of customer centricity , this book successfully blends strategy with implementation and also features a range of innovative new and traditional business examples from across the globe. Easy to read, in-depth and full of practical advice, this is the essential step-by-step guide to implementing customer centricity to endure in the long-term.