I’ve worked in and around the tech, science and startup world for the past 10 years, and hype has played various roles in my work and life. From working in advertising where my job was to build narratives around ideas and products, then in journalism where I was tasked with sorting hype from reality when deciding who and what to write about, to now being a researcher who looks into the very nature and power of narratives, ideologies, political economies and cultures around science and technology – hype has been a recurring topic which is so important in understanding and navigating the tech industry. I hope you find these books as enlightening as I have!
I loved this book because it not only picks apart the concept of "innovation" and helps you approach its usage across work, media, and everyday life but it also goes into exploring an alternative view – that of "maintenance."
It’s packed full of great examples, provides much-needed clear analysis of things we take for granted (like bridges!), and gives me hope for different ways of approaching how to talk about technology, innovation, and the future.
“Innovation” is the hottest buzzword in business. But what if our obsession with finding the next big thing has distracted us from the work that matters most?
“The most important book I’ve read in a long time . . . It explains so much about what is wrong with our technology, our economy, and the world, and gives a simple recipe for how to fix it: Focus on understanding what it takes for your products and services to last.”—Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media
It’s hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether…
The traditional way of commercializing an invention — patenting, prototyping, then marketing it — doesn’t work very well and never has. When I found an easier way to share my creativity with the world, it changed my life, because the feeling you get when you hold something in your hand that you first imagined in your head is second to none. My 10-step process breaks down barriers so that everyone who has an idea — young or old, rich or poor — can get in the game of bringing it to market. I’ve published 5 books, 1,000 articles, and more than 700 videos to help others take advantage of the power of open innovation.
This is the best book I have read about how to become a profitable toy inventor. Richard Levy, the toy inventor responsible for the Furby and many other massive successes, is the real deal. His inventing tips and advice are absolutely priceless. He is the perfect example of the right person to take inventing advice from! By that I mean, he is an inventor who has achieved repeat commercial success.
Presents information on how to successfully market an invention covering such topics as licensing options, negotiating deals, patents and trademarks, and copyrights.
I’m a journalist and a tinkerer. I’m fascinated not only by how things work but by how small levers can move mountains. Growing up in the workshop of my grandfather, an old Boston boatwright, I was mesmerized by the idea that a small rudder could maneuver a huge vessel. In college, I fell in love with how a small idea or expression could redirect a course of research or a country. As a self-taught maker of things, I appreciate how technologies empower us. I’ve chosen these books because they’re examples of how small ideas become things, lines of research, or patterns of thinking that shift human progress in unknowable ways.
I recommend The Inversion Factorbecause it’s a deep dive into the Internet of Things from some of the people who made the IoT possible: the geniuses at MIT.
The book’s take on commerce alone is fascinating, the idea that in the future, demand will be driven not by companies deciding what to make and sell but by a flow of consumer data coming from connected devices telling companies, “Here’s what you need to make next.”
Plus, the descriptions of the IoT home and services, tempered though they are by realities like the fact that self-driving cars aren’t very good yet at not running people over, are gripping. Great book.
Why companies need to move away from a “product first” orientation to pursuing innovation based on customer need.
In the past, companies found success with a product-first orientation; they made a thing that did a thing. The Inversion Factor explains why the companies of today and tomorrow will have to abandon the product-first orientation. Rather than asking “How do the products we make meet customer needs?” companies should ask “How can technology help us reimagine and fill a need?” Zipcar, for example, instead of developing another vehicle for moving people from point A to point B, reimagined how people interacted…
For as long I can remember, I’ve been an ideas guy. I even like the idea of ideas…I guess that makes me a meta-idea guy. But not just any ideas. Ideas that achieve the maximum impact with the minimum means. Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, “I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I’d give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Creative ideas are the main event of the imagination, and the simpler the better. I've written and published several books, hundreds of articles and blogs, and even had dozens of songs published. But by far my favorite creative accomplishment is winning the New Yorker cartoon caption contest in 2008.
I love contrarian thinking. It’s by definition creative…new, novel, useful. That’s what David Burkus does with this book. There are a lot of conventional thoughts about creativity and the generation of innovative ideas that are held out as universal truths, but just aren’t. True, that is. David takes them all to task, pokes holes in them with science and logic and good old thoughtful insight, and dispels an entire family of mythology...misconceptions all relating to creative thinking: brainstorming, collaborating, incentivizing, and about a dozen more. Prepare to have much of your current understanding of creativity shaken.
How to get past the most common myths about creativity to design truly innovative strategies We tend to think of creativity in terms reminiscent of the ancient muses: divinely-inspired, unpredictable, and bestowed upon a lucky few. But when our jobs challenge us to be creative on demand, we must develop novel, useful ideas that will keep our organizations competitive. The Myths of Creativity demystifies the processes that drive innovation. Based on the latest research into how creative individuals and firms succeed, David Burkus highlights the mistaken ideas that hold us back and shows us how anyone can embrace a practical…
The truth is, I’ve never fit in. I'm always asking questions like: Why do we do it that way? And, what if we tried this instead? These types of questions, however, though intriguing to me and other creatives, make the keepers of the status quo really nervous. As a professor and narrative inquiry researcher, I study the stories of people who've been silenced—extracting the characters, plot, and setting these narratives have in common. For workplace abuse survivors, a salient theme is they think big! To support this mission, I'm on the Executive Board and serve as the Education Director for the National Workplace Bullying Coalition and am a regular contributor to Psychology Today.
It was my research on creativity that led me to study workplace abuse.
Surprisingly, there are remarkable similarities among targets of bullying; most salient, they tend to shake the status quo at work while exploring and offering novel solutions to institutionalized problems. Unfortunately, as Grant details in his research, instead of embracing these innovators as forecasters of the future, organizations attempt to silence and minimize their contributions.
However, creatives are not in it for the money or accolades, but for the love of the game and dedication to the mission, thus when they are forced to bow to tradition and play smaller than who they were born to be, they exit the stifling work environment, thus further stagnating an already lagging work culture.
In this book, Grant brilliantly hails the power of the creative to both change our minds and change the world, urging institutions to give them space to…
The #1 New York Times bestseller that examines how people can champion new ideas in their careers and everyday life-and how leaders can fight groupthink, from the author of Think Again and co-author of Option B
"Filled with fresh insights on a broad array of topics that are important to our personal and professional lives."-The New York Times DealBook
"Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life.…
I’m the Founder & CEO of Widerfunnel, and the author of You Should Test That!. I launched Widerfunnel as the "anti-agency" with a purpose to prove that evidence-based decisions get the best results. Today, we run the experimentation, conversion rate optimization, qualitative research, and behavioral science programs for companies such as HP, Microsoft, Dollar Shave Club, The Motley Fool, TaylorMade Golf Company, and many more across all industries. I've spoken at over 300 events globally, sharing case studies, planning frameworks, and best practices of leading growth brands.
Every company wants to innovate, but it's not always clear how to do that in practice. Competing Against Luck highlights the importance of understanding what "jobs" your customer "hires" your product to do. The ‘Jobs to be Done Theory’ is one of the best frameworks I have seen to drive toward innovation and product-market fit. In the CRO world, we typically think about optimizing experience, but optimizing the product-market fit is equally as important.
The foremost authority on innovation and growth presents a path-breaking book every company needs to transform innovation from a game of chance to one in which they develop products and services customers not only want to buy, but are willing to pay premium prices for. How do companies know how to grow? How can they create products that they are sure customers want to buy? Can innovation be more than a game of hit and miss? Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has the answer. A generation ago, Christensen revolutionized business with his groundbreaking theory of disruptive innovation. Now, he…
The Right It is a short book filled
with useful tips for testing and validating innovative new products.
It builds
off Alberto Savoia's work at Google and his learnings helping hundreds of
entrepreneurs build products. Although the content must have felt more innovative
when it came out, I enjoyed the book's narrative and simplicity.
The Law of Market Failure: Most new products will fail in the market, even if competently executed.
Using his experience at Google, his remarkable success as an entrepreneur and consultant, and insights from his lectures at Stanford University and Google, Alberto Savoia's The Right It offers an unparalleled approach to beating the beast that is market failure.
Millions of people around the world are working hard to bring to life new ideas. Some of these ideas will turn out to be stunning successes that will have a major impact on our world and our culture: The next Google, the next…
How many people have had a great idea and just needed to gain support within a large organization to move ahead? I have, over and over again, along with very accomplished teams. It’s often hard work to create something new. It requires both art and science. When people understand how it works, they elevate their craft and achieve more while lifting others up. Some of them even change the world. I’ve found great wisdom and amazing stories of courage and adventure from people who have already been there, done that, and written about their experiences. I hope these book recommendations broaden your perspective and inspire your imagination!
This book provides actionable guidance for those who want to identify and assess new strategic growth opportunities for their companies. I found it especially valuable since my research has highlighted how much groundbreaking intrapreneurial success depends on strong alignment with the broader organization’s strategy.
A basic premise is that red oceans are already filled with lots of competition, and blue oceans offer a broader range of motion to define new categories and establish a sustainable leadership position. Readers will find a powerful framework and tools for those who commit to world-class strategy as they assess where to focus- and how to do it.
This book is a valuable primary reference, especially for a deep dive into strategy as part of the overall intrapreneurial journey.
OVER 4 MILLION COPIES SOLD WALL STREET JOURNAL AND BUSINESSWEEK BESTSELLER RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC AND IMPACTFUL STRATEGY BOOKS EVER WRITTEN
The global phenomenon that has sold over 4 million copies, is published in a record-breaking 46 languages and is a bestseller across five continents--now updated and expanded with new content. Named by Fast Company as one of the most influential leadership books in its Leadership Hall of Fame. A strategy classic.
In this perennial bestseller, embraced by organizations and industries worldwide, globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne challenge everything you thought you…
I build and use emerging technological innovations in business, and I also teach others how they might too! I’m a serial entrepreneur and a Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. As an entrepreneur, I co-founded and developed the core IP for Yodle Inc, a venture-backed firm that was acquired by Web.com. I’m now the founder of Jumpcut Media – a startup using data and Web3 technologies to democratize opportunities in Film and TV. In all this work, I'm often trying to assess how emerging technologies may affect business and society in the long run and how I can apply them to create new products and services.
This book by Steven Blank is a bible for anyone trying to understand how to build lean startups. The classic mistake that most entrepreneurs make is to go build a product soon after they develop a hypothesis about what customers want. By building products before customer discovery (i.e. verify customer needs and a scalable sales model), many products miss the mark and fail. The book explains how a lean start-up can figure out what customers want before proceeding to build products. This emphasis on a customer-centered approach rather than a product-centered approach can be the difference when it comes to finding product-market fit. A must-read for any founder!
The bestselling classic that launched 10,000 startups and new corporate ventures - The Four Steps to the Epiphany is one of the most influential and practical business books of all time. The Four Steps to the Epiphany launched the Lean Startup approach to new ventures. It was the first book to offer that startups are not smaller versions of large companies and that new ventures are different than existing ones. Startups search for business models while existing companies execute them.
The book offers the practical and proven four-step Customer Development process for search and offers insight into what makes some…
Jeff has been a UX designer, team leader and product manager for over 20 years. His work in the field helped define some of the key practices product managers use today. Building a customer-centric practice is key to successful products and services and Jeff has demonstrated that not only in the products and companies he’s helped build but in the writing and thinking he’s contributed to the product managaement community.
David and Alex have written the definitive reference book for product experiments. Forty-four ways for you to learn quickly and efficiently whether you’re building something of value. This book is beautifully illustrated and infinitely practical.
A practical guide to effective business model testing
7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder's global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas.
Testing Business Ideas explains how systematically testing business ideas dramatically reduces the risk and increases the likelihood of success for any new venture or business project. It builds on the internationally popular Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas by integrating Assumptions Mapping and other powerful lean…
