For a book on innovation, this is disappointingly unimaginative. My son is back in school, finishing a degree in operations management and this is one of two books assigned for a class this semester. The other is inGenius, which has its own flaws, but at least will have value for the students. As I read books like these when I can, I wanted to see what he'd be working with. Dyer, et al, have cobbled together a poor business book with worn tropes, academic tables, and all of the wrong examples - Bezos, Jobs, Larry Page, ... and far too much "What if Jobs hadn’t decided to drop in on the calligraphy classes when he had dropped out of college?", "What if so and so hadn't stopped to talk to ...?" The authors give too much credit to the wrong things - and gloss over the failures. Jobs' supposed innovation of OSX derived from his NeXT Computer days didn't mention that NeXT was a colossal failure (as was every Jobs attempt at a post-Macintosh computer; and credit where due, the consumer electronics direction was innovative.) Now, there are some good points made, but they are buried in repetition and take too much time to filter if this is the first book on the subject you read.

(Christensen gets a lot of love in the comments, but I've not been able to force myself through The Innovator's Dilemma despite multiple tries and a genuine interest in the subject. Maybe I'll try again...)

I don't think this is a good book for a class, despite its academic framing. I'm curious to see what is presented and what my son will get out of it.

Jumping off point: the authors mentioned Kaki King's guitar imagination and I checked out one of her TEDWomen "talks" here. That was something of value. ( )

This is an essential read for business people and entrepreneurs to understand the value of creative solutions and the value of technology in the future of business. ( )

After all my reading so far - I was expecting recovered clever answers about discovery skills that distinguish innovators from basic and ordinary people ! start learning first "pure right or Left brain" to illustrate DNA potential and then jump over the five building blocks of Innovation which are pretty well described within this book as marvelous "Modus Operandi" Revelation.

Sunday, Oct 23 - 2011 ( )