Innovation

For almost six decades, I have studied the histories of firms and their successes and failures in creating value. I am always looking for heavy hitters who write about their thinking/doing process. Curt Carlson qualifies.

When he was CEO of SRI International, he guided the conception and development of HDTV, Siri, the computer mouse, electronic banking, robotic surgery which evolved into Intuitive Surgical (the dominant robotics surgical firm with its Da Vinci system), and much more.

I first found Carlson via a Harvard Business Review article in which he laid out his proven steps for value creation that seem so… show more.

Carlson and Wilmot know whereof they speak when it comes to innovation. Using a methodology honed over a great deal of practice, their company SRI International, created many of the artifacts of modern life that we take utterly for granted, such as the computer mouse, high-definition television, innovations in banking and of course Siri, the voice enabled personal assistant that comes with iPhones. In this book (and their subsequent publications stemming from it), they lay out a systematic process that turns innovation from a haphazard process to a reliable capability.