The Innovation Bookshelf

Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity. By Hugh MacLeod. Portfolio.

iw — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:32:16 +0000

When Hugh MacLeod was a struggling young copywriter, living in a YMCA, he started to doodle on the backs of business cards while sitting at a bar. Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog – gapingvoid.com – and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures. MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person? … Read more

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Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, Your Business, and Maybe Even the World. By Warren Berger. Random House.

iw — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:25:39 +0000

What can we learn from the ways great designers think-and how can it improve our world? In this highly original book by journalist Warren Berger, in collaboration with celebrated designer Bruce Mau, ten groundbreaking principles of design are shown in action-addressing business, social, and personal challenges and improving the way we think, work, and live. … Read more

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Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. By Tim Brown. HarperCollins.

iw — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:27:22 +0000

This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a blueprint for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking — an approach for creative problem solving — into all facets of their organizations, products, or services to discover new alternatives for business and society as a whole. Written with imagination, humor, and vision, this vital and inspiring guide is essential reading for anyone confronting the challenges of today in order to create the opportunities of tomorrow… Read more

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Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change. By Jeremy Gutsche. Gotham Books.

iw — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:05:13 +0000

The hottest trend spotter in North America reveals powerful strategies for thriving in any economic climate. Did you know that Hewlett-Packard, Disney, Hyatt, MTV, CNN, Microsoft, Burger King, and GE all started during periods of economic recession? Periods of uncertainty fuel tremendous opportunity, but the deck gets reshuffled and the rules of the game get changed. Exploiting Chaos is the ultimate business survival guide for all those looking to change the world. Topics include: Sparking a Revolution, Trend Hunting, Adaptive Innovation, and Infectious Messaging.

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The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. By W. Brian Arthur. Free Press.

iw — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:33:58 +0000

The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology’s origins and evolution. It achieves for the progress of technology what Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for scientific progress. Arthur explains how transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really works. Conventional thinking ascribes the invention of technologies to “thinking outside the box,” or vaguely to genius or creativity, but Arthur shows that such explanations are inadequate. Rather, technologies are put together from pieces Ã¢â‚¬â€ themselves technologies Ã¢â‚¬â€ that already exist. Technologies therefore share common ancestries and combine, morph, and combine again to create further technologies. Technology evolves much as a coral reef builds itself from activities of small organisms Ã¢â‚¬â€ it creates itself from itself; all technologies are descended from earlier technologies.

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The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times. By Scott D. Anthony. Harvard Business Press.

iw — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:23:14 +0000

The Silver Lining shows how managers can apply the time-tested principles of disruptive innovation to manage the ultimate business paradox: cutting costs while simultaneously innovating for growth. Based on deep academic research and lessons from successful innovators, Anthony provides frameworks and tools managers can use to determine what to stop doing, what to do differently, and what to start doing to adopt a disruptive innovation mind-set.

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Genius 101. By Dean Keith Simonton. Springer Publishing Company.

iw — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:32:07 +0000

Genius 101 examines the many definitions of “genius,” and the multiple domains in which it appears, including art, science, music, business, literature, and the media. Dr. Simonton introduces the study of genius theory and the research supporting it, using non-scientific, accessible language — fit for a non-genius. Dean Keith Simonton, PhD, is Distinguished Professor and Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He has authored ten books and over 300 journal articles and book chapters on creativity and genius. His book Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity has won the William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association.

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