For many innovative people, the problem is not coming up with enough ideas, but getting attention for those ideas we decide to implement. To solve this problem, we need to invest more time developing persuasive stories that make an emotional connection with the people we’re trying to influence. That’s the message of Bernadette Jiwa’s terrific book Make Your Idea Matter: Stand Out With a Better Story.
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon is a wonderful little book that is designed for anyone who is ever has had a desire to create something amazing, but doesn’t know where to start.
Are you a cubicle slave who longs to be their own boss, to take their Really Big Idea and run with it, unencumbered by the shackles of the corporate world? Then you need to pick up Hugh MacLeod’s new book, Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination.
Though not a new concept, “reverse innovation” is hardly straight-forward in practice. Govindarajan and Trimble’s showcasing of successful projects, Fortune 500-type best practice and essential theory in the field endeavors to lay down a modus operandi, yet one which lacks a lasting echo. In this review Jeffrey Phillips argues that despite its good intentions, the book seems to cater only to multinationals, ignoring the needs of small/mid-sized players whose drive is high, yet resources low. Reverse innovation requires a different mind-set, workflow and altogether pace for socially and economically consistent results to emerge.
James Gardner’s new book takes a look at innovation from another perspective – it’s not always about new ideas but how new ideas are made useful. In this book review René van der Hulst walks us through the three mechanisms Gardner has identified that accelerate acceptance of new products or services and increase competitive boundaries.
Higher education is heading for disruption. In the new book The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education From the Inside Out, Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring explore why this is inevitable and what traditional universities and colleges can do about it. Professor Bill Fischer, himself an avid believer in disruption, reviews this book covering an extremely timely subject.
In his new book Relentless Innovation, prolific innovation author Jeffrey Phillips looks at innovation from an enterprise-level perspective, encouraging companies to adopt an innovation capability that can be scaled and repeated throughout the firm, rather than attempt the one-off innovation initiatives that are common to big businesses today.
Many companies tout innovation in their marketing. Being perceived as innovative is important. But the message and reality can only diverge temporarily. A new book by Langdon Morris is providing a simple but very effective framework to guide CEOs as they address what many perceive as the dilemma of innovation.
In a completely revised and updated fourth edition, Robert Cooper reminds us that his Stage-Gate process has become the most widely used method for managing new products in industry today. Stage-Gate is an ideas-to-launch process that encompasses a solid body of knowledge and best practice gleaned from studies of thousands of new product developments.
What are the characteristics or skills of a strong innovator? In The Innovator’s DNA, authors Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen set out five skills or attributes they claim are consistently demonstrated by successful innovators. The identification of these attributes is helpful but the book fails to fully address how firms should take advantage of the new insights, especially at an enterprise level.
Even companies that do not invest in design thinking do invest in designing their brand. In a new book, Brand Driven Innovation, Erik Roscam Abbing looks at how brand should be redesigned and how that helps the innovation process.
A new book by Innovation Management contributor Gaurav Bhalla tackles the growing importance of the customer in the innovation process. Paul Hobcraft looks at what it means to collaborate and co-create with customers.
Chesbrough is back with a new book on open innovation, this time extending the open paradigm to services. Paul Hobcraft goes past the sub-title “Rethinking your business to grow and compete in a new era”, in search of the real news.
In this book review Paul Hobcraft looks at “Personality Poker: The Playing Card Tool for Driving High-Performance Teamwork and Innovation” by Stephen M Shapiro.
In this book review Paul Hobcraft looks at “Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire- a Roadmap to a Sustainable Culture of Ingenuity and Purpose” by Braden Kelley, published by Wiley.
