Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change (Hardcover)

Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change
Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change (Hardcover)
By Clayton M. Christensen

Buy new: $21.75
171 used and new from $4.95
Customer Rating: 4.4

Customer tags: innovation(29), christensen(8), forecasting(7), future(6), business(4), personal mba(4), harvard business review(3), att(2), 9781591391852, 1591391857, a-vip, adam

Review & Description

Every day, individuals take action based on how they believe innovation will change industries. Yet these beliefs are largely based on guesswork and incomplete data and lead to costly errors in judgment. Now, internationally renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen and his research partners Scott D. Anthony and Erik A. Roth present a groundbreaking framework for predicting outcomes in the evolution of any industry. Based on proven theories outlined in Christensen's landmark books The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution, Seeing What's Next offers a practical, three-part model that helps decision-makers spot the signals of industry change, determine the outcome of competitive battles, and assess whether a firm's actions will ensure or threaten future success. Through in-depth case studies of industries from aviation to health care, the authors illustrate the predictive power of innovation theory in action. Read more


Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity (Hardcover)

Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity
Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity (Hardcover)
By Josh Linkner

Buy new: $15.71
67 used and new from $9.50
Customer Rating: 4.4

Customer tags: creativity(41), innovation(32), leadership(21), entrepreneurship(14), business(13), imagination(13), marketing(10), eprize(6), gilbert(2), brainstorm(2), linkner(2), josh linkner(2)

Review & Description

A 5-part process that will transform your organization — or your career — into a non-stop creativity juggernaut

We live in an era when business cycles are measured in months, not years. The only way to sustain long term innovation and growth is through creativity-at all levels of an organization. Disciplined Dreaming shows you how to create profitable new ideas, empower all your employees to be creative, and sustain your competitive advantage over the long term. Linkner distills his years of experience in business and jazz — as well as hundreds of interviews with CEOs, entrepreneurs, and artists — into a 5-step process that will make creativity easy for you and your organization. The methodology is simple, backed by proven results.

  • Empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to meet creative challenges posed by the marketplace
  • Turns the mystery of creativity into a simple-to-use process
  • Shows how creativity can be used for everything from innovative, game-shifting breakthroughs to incremental advances and daily improvements to business processes
  • Offers dozens of practical exercises, thought-starters, workouts to grow "creative muscles," and case studies

Disciplined Dreaming shows even the stuffiest corporate bureaucracies how to cultivate creativity in order to become more competitive in today's shifting marketplace.

#8 New York Times Bestseller (Hardcover Business)

#2 Wall Street Journal Bestseller (Hardcover Business)

#9 Wall Street Journal Bestseller (Hardcover Nonfiction)

#9 Washington Post Bestseller (Nonfiction Hardcover)

#1 USA Today Bestseller (Money)

#10 Publishers Weekly Bestseller (Nonfiction)

Q&A with Author Josh Linkner

Author Josh Linkner
Why is creativity in the workplace so important?
The world has dramatically changed in the last few years, and many of the competitive advantages of the past have become commoditized. With increased complexity, dizzying speed, and ruthless competition now commonplace in business, creativity and innovation have become the only true sustainable competitive advantage. Creativity is the one thing you can’t outsource. It’s the difference between game-changing companies and also-rans. Individuals may get hired based on their resumes, but they get promoted and succeed based on their creativity. Creativity has become the currency of success in the new era of business, and life.

What is Disciplined Dreaming?
Disciplined Dreaming is a five-part system to build, nurture, and manage creativity. It is based on my experience as a four-time entrepreneur, jazz musician, and venture capitalist, plus personal interviews I conducted with over 200 thought leaders--CEOs, entrepreneurs, artists, billionaires, nonprofit leaders. I developed Disciplined Dreaming by distilling the collective wisdom of this amazing group into a simple, easy-to-follow process that you can put to use immediately to drive your own creativity.

An accomplished musician yourself, you compare creative riffs at work to jazz improvisation. How do the two relate?
In jazz, 99 percent of the notes are improvised. Spontaneous creativity. However, that 1 percent that’s on the written page is incredibly important. It provides musicians with a framework to direct and enhance their creativity. Disciplined Dreaming is the business-world equivalent to that 1 percent. It provides a structure that enables creativity. In addition, jazz musicians use specific patterns and techniques as building blocks of innovation. I’ve been able to translate many of those concepts into the language of business, and I show readers how to inject them into their daily lives. These “riffs” can be applied to creative challenges of all sizes, and they help support the creative process.

How can you start working creativity muscles with a team that has grown stagnant?
The biggest inhibitor of creativity isn’t human potential, it is fear. While we enter the world with limitless creativity, our schools, organizations, and bureaucracies beat it out of us. We are so worried about saying the wrong thing, looking foolish, or having to take responsibility for a new idea that we govern our own imagination. Too often, corporate cultures stifle their most valuable natural resource—fresh ideas. This can be quickly fixed through using techniques in the book that deal with preparing your culture, physical environment, and mind-set to drive maximum creative output. Disciplined Dreaming includes new brainstorming techniques such as “RoleStorming,” “The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,” and “Stick-it-to-the-man,” which will get your creative muscles in shape in no time.
Read more


Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Community, Culture and Globalization (Paperback)

Community, Culture and Globalization
Community, Culture and Globalization (Paperback)
By Don Adams

Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition (Paperback)

Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition
Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition (Paperback)
By Everett M. Rogers

Review & Description

Now in its fifth edition, Diffusion of Innovations is a classic work on the spread of new ideas. It has sold 30,000 copies in each edition and will continue to reach a huge academic audience.

In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances--a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas. Read more


Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Monday, June 20, 2011

Tales of Little Bear and Little Buffalo (Paperback)

Tales of Little Bear and Little Buffalo
Tales of Little Bear and Little Buffalo (Paperback)
By Roy Naquin

Buy new: $9.95
14 used and new from $9.09
Customer Rating: 3.8

First tagged by Outskirts
Customer tags: family stories(2), juvenile fiction(2), compassion(2), heart and soul, mischief, wisdom, bravery, tradition, innovation, joy

Review & Description

Adventures in the Wilderness!

Little Bear is a boy whose curiosity is matched only by his daring. He and his cousin, Little Buffalo, grow up in a changing world where they balance tradition - like earning the right to their own dugout canoes - with innovation, in the form of a new local schoolhouse. Little Bear's father is the tribal chief, but that doesn't stop Little Bear from getting into mischief. From acts of great bravery to gestures of deep compassion, Little Bear and Little Buffalo put themselves heart and soul into every moment of their lives, with contagious joy and spontaneous wisdom. Roy Naquin's beautiful storytelling retains the clarity, cadence, and humor of these delightful family stories told to him by his father and grandfather. Tales of Little Bear and Little Buffalo is a treasure for children and adults alike. Read more


Find out More for the best price at Amazon

The Dark Side of Creativity (Paperback)

The Dark Side of Creativity
The Dark Side of Creativity (Paperback)
By James C. Kaufman

Buy new: $31.67
57 used and new from $9.45

First tagged by Michael George
Customer tags: creativity, psychology, innovation, ideas

Review & Description

With few exceptions, scholarship on creativity has focused on its positive aspects while largely ignoring its dark side. This includes not only creativity deliberately aimed at hurting others, such as crime or terrorism, or at gaining unfair advantages, but also the accidental negative side effects of well-intentioned acts. This book brings together essays written by experts from various fields (psychology, criminal justice, sociology, engineering, education, history, and design) and with different interests (personality development, mental health, deviant behavior, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism) to illustrate the nature of negative creativity, examine its variants, call attention to its dangers, and draw conclusions about how to prevent it or protect society from its effects. Read more


Find out More for the best price at Amazon

Beyond the Beaker: How to Achieve Successful Market Adoption for Emerging Technologies (Hardcover)

Beyond the Beaker: How to Achieve Successful Market Adoption for Emerging Technologies
Beyond the Beaker: How to Achieve Successful Market Adoption for Emerging Technologies (Hardcover)
By Paul D. Patterson

Buy new: $27.95
11 used and new from $4.09
Customer Rating: 4.4

Customer tags: product management(23), marketing(22), emerging technologies(21), innovation(20), development(18), life cycle(17), collaboration(16), launch(14), expert(12), strategy(2), business development(2), biz development

Review & Description

2011 Axiom Bronze Medallion winner of International Business & Globalization: Founders of emerging technologies are typically highly-qualified technical experts faced with a web of unfamiliar obstacles in commercialization. Drawing on years of global experience with emerging technologies and start-ups, the author integrates theories with case studies to illustrate how successful businesses managed the challenges and opportunities. This book offers insights on sound and proven technical and commercial practices. From 'Eureka!' in the laboratory to market adoption, it offers a technology management framework. It also covers the various business aspects, from obtaining funding, strategic planning and alliances, to sales, marketing and organizational management. In addition, real-life examples highlight the common pitfalls and reveal the often hidden work behind the scenes. Beyond the Beaker will leave you wondering how many miracles of modern science have been lost due to the inability to execute beyond the lab. It is a must read for all innovators who want to succeed. It also benefits corporations and business partners working with start-ups. If you re truly motivated about building or investing in a successful emerging technology start-up, do not put down this book until you reach the last page. Read more


Find out More for the best price at Amazon