Description
Book SynopsisEver wonder where big, breakthrough ideas come from? How do innovators manage to spot the opportunities for industry revolution that everyone else seems to miss? Contrary to popular belief, innovation is not some mystical art that s forbidden to mere mortals.
Table of Contentsviii Preface
xi Acknowledgments
xii Introduction
1 Part One: The Mind of the Innovator
2 The Elusive Source of Creative Genius
12 Challenging Orthodoxies
15 Harnessing Trends
20 Leveraging Resources
30 Understanding Needs
40 The Four Lenses of Innovation
46 Time for an Innovation Renaissance
58 Lessons to Take Away
61 Part Two: The Power of Patterns
62 Seeing Things from a Fresh Perspective
66 What’s Wrong with Our Brains?
68 The Pattern-Recognition Principle
70 Why We Stop Noticing
72 The Pattern of the Crowd
74 Resistance to Change
78 Patterns and Innovation
80 Sharpening Our Perceptive Powers
84 A Power Tool for Creative Thinking
86 Lessons to Take Away
89 Part Three: Looking Through the Four Lenses
92 “Here’s to the Crazy Ones”
96 What Exactly Is an Orthodoxy?
102 Meet the Challengers
105 On a Path of Disruption
111 Innovation Means Shifting Assumptions
114 Ready to Rethink Everything?
117 Lessons to Take Away
118 Seeing the Future in the Present
120 A Global “Change Bomb”
122 The Race for Tomorrow
126 Learning to Ride the Waves
130 Meet the Trend Surfers
137 The Man from the Future
142 Fast-Forward Companies
144 It’s Happening Now!
147 The Next Big Thing for Your Business
151 Lessons to Take Away
152 Repurpose, Redeploy, & Recombine
155 How Would You Define Google?
159 Leveraging Resources in New Ways
160 Extending the Boundaries of the Business
163 Stretching into New Spaces
166 Unlimited Potential for Growth
168 Exploiting Underutilized Assets
170 What Else Could We Do with This?
174 Leveraging Resources from Others
177 Lessons to Take Away
178 Innovating from the Customer Backward
182 Do Customers Really Know What They Want?
185 What’s Wrong with It?
189 Understanding Particular Customer Groups
191 Innovating for Local Needs and Tastes
194 Matching What Is Possible with What Is Needed
201 Lessons to Take Away
203 Part Four: How Big Ideas Are Built
204 The Archimedes Principle
208 Rethinking the Universe
214 8 Steps to Building a Breakthrough
216 Inventing the 20th Century
224 Unpacking the Creative Process
230 “Say Good Bye to the Bag”
232 Different Routes to Big Ideas
235 Lessons to Take Away
236 What Exactly Is an Insight?
242 Do Insights Come from Breakthrough Thinking? Or Does Breakthrough Thinking Come from Insights?
244 A Practical Definition of Insights
246 Understanding Ideation
248 Stepping Stones for Creative Thinking
250 Improving Your Capacity for Radical Innovation
252 How Powerful Are Your Insights?
254 Working with the Four Lenses
259 Lessons to Take Away
260 Notes
269 Image Credits
272 Index
284 About the Author
