Unsound ideas about new ideas ..............
The "look inside" feature allows you to find sentences like, "Work-life balance is a newly emerging concern". Is the author saying it was never a concern to anyone until now? Or just never a concern to "New Economy" writers?
On the cover, Seth Godin's spruik concludes, "Innovation isn't hard, it just takes practice". Does the author believe that?
This book is guru wannabe central, designed as a client generator and biography padder. For insight look elsewhere.
Where do I get my money back ?.
Not often one can find a book so irrelevant as this. It repeats the same trivia in support of irrelevant points and never gets to make a contribution to creativity. It is amazingly ignorant on scientific, technical and art issues and oddly enough it tells lies about those whom supposedly has interviewed. Where do I get my money back ?.
Brainstorm in a book
I have to admit when I bought this book over a year ago and started to read it, I put it down out of frustration. I have read many books on creativity and innovation and there seemed to be nothing new that this book added. There have been many books released recently that seemed to be just rehashing the creative techniques and tools. There is some really good books already published that, can teach you the different aspects of creativity, creative techniques and innovation.
I have listed a few here by Author, please check out my innovation listmania list on Creativity 101.Jordan E. Ayan � A good overview of creativity and some tools.
Edward De Bono � The pioneer of �Lateral Thinking�,
Tony Buzan � The Pioneer of Mind Mapping and other tools for the mind
Bryan W. Mattimore � A collection of essays on creativity
Michael Michalko � Covers the SCAMPER method
Roger Von Oech � Author of the Creative Whack Pack, a great set of tools of creativity
Charles Thompson � Average Treatise on Creativity
Denise Sherekjan - Uncommon Genius � A book based on interviews with people who have been awarded the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship �Genius Award�
Brenda Ueland - If you want to Write � An amazing book on writing and creativity
Tom Peters � Great Books on Business Innovation and Creativity
Peter Law - Creative Company � The Story of St Lukes � the Most Creative Company in the world.
Michael Schrage - Serious Play � Interesting book on business Creativity
Gordon Mackenzie - Orbiting the Giant HairBall � The Story of creativity and finding it in corporate America (HallMark) But, I have to admit my first impressions about this book were wrong. I try not to judge a book too early, and hence 1 year later I picked this book up again. Scanning through the book I noticed many interesting profiles of innovators that I admire (Nathan Myhrvold, Brian Greene etc.). I was looking for a stimulating read, so I decide to take this book with me on a business trip. I ended up devouring this book very quickly, and then I ended up going back through the book with my highlighter and post it notes. I have tagged many pages and highlighted many paragraphs. There are notes all over the pages.
I found this book to be very stimulating and even though on first glance this does not seem to add anything new to the creativity field, there is a lot to gain from this book. The best way I can describe this book as is a �Brainstorm� in a book. I found the different interviews and examples that Shira White details in this book to be very interesting. She obviously draws a lot from her own business experience, which is a good thing. I know some people will see this as just a plug for her company, but I would rather someone write about creativity from a position of knowledge and experience than just pull examples from other people.
There is a lot of research that has gone into this book. It is very apparent that she conducted some very in-depth interviews with the innovators profiled.
The flow of the book, and how it starts, leaves a lot to be desired, but once you understand that this is not a book that is going to teach creativity, or creative techniques (please refer to the above list if you are looking for other books and authors on creativity and innovation). This book is full of ideas from some very respected innovators and draws from Shira White�s own experience and this is pulled together in what I can only describe as creative vignettes. I found this book very rewarding to read, once I got past my initial perceptions. As another reviewer pointed out, the cutsey nature of the titles will put some people off (H3�s, Spark soup etc..). If you get past this, you will find this is a truly stimulating read.
The flow of the book seems to jump around, but there is a cohesive feel to the book. It follows through the different stages of innovation and illustrates the stages with examples.
I am still not sure how you would categorize this book since just saying business innovation and creativity, doesn�t really tell you what this book is about. Reading the book, felt like taking part in a brainstorm/think tank on creativity with some world-renowned innovators. I found the book to be stimulating, and well worth the effort to read. There is one caveat; the examples drawn from Enron, probably were a bad idea in retrospect. They seem to have upset a few people. Putting Enron and creativity together under one cover seems to give creativity a bad name. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a stimulating and inspirational read on the subject of creativity.
Check for more reviews on Amazon.com
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