Idea Development at Ideo

 

The Art of Innovation: Success Through Innovation the IDEO Way
Author: Thomas Kelley (co-founder of Ideo)
Genre: Business/idea generation

A thought-provoking book about brainstorming and product development, Ideo-style. Worth reading both because of the practical tips on how to develop innovative products (and innovative cultures), and because of the portrayal of Ideo, a super interesting product development company. Lots of good case stories, as well.

A guide to the creative industries

Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce
Author: Richard E. Caves
Genre: Academic – microeconomics in action

If you are interested in getting an in-depth understanding of how the creative industries work – movie production, book publishing, art galleries, music distribution, etc. – I know no better starting point than this book.

It explains why Hollywood occasionally releases ten ton turkeys like Travolta’s infamous ‘Battlestar Galactica’, it illuminates exactly how difficult it is to get a fiction book published (and why), and it exposes how major music publishers have been ripping off their artists in a thorough and systematic manner. And lots more. Not a light read, but really interesting stuff. If I were to teach a course on either the creative industries or media economics, this would be the core curriculum.

The Medici Effect

The Medici Effect
Author: Frans Johansson
Genre: Business/innovation

Inspiring book about how innovation happens when you mix up different fields and disciplines, with lots of case stories. While a lot of the evidence presented in the book is anecdotal, the main argument still rings quite true.

The Medici in the title refers to the Renaissance Italian merchant family – according to the author, the intellectual environment in Florence at the time of the Medicis was an early example of an innovation powerhouse.

Dead, funny, fascinating

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Author: Mary Roach
Genre: Popular (yet ghoulish) science

This is a book about what happens to our bodies after we die. Dissection, cremation, decomposition, organ donation, forensic work – you name it, this book has it. Ever wondered whether people retain consciousness when they are beheaded, say, by a guillotine? I have. And so has the author, Mary Roach; in fact, she has been wondering about a lot of weird things, and she didn’t stop there. The expression ‘morbid curiosity’ doesn’t quite cover it.

Sounds grisly? It is. It is also eerily fascinating, and often laughing-out-loud funny. It’s a highly palatable read, but don’t bring it to the dinner table. Also, don’t read the section about what happens to people who fall out of airplanes when you are, as I was, sitting in an airplane.

Thanks to Sean Geer for this one. Sean, I strongly suspect this won’t be the last time I thank you for a book recommendation.

The Science of Happiness

Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile
Author: Daniel Nettle
Genre: Popular Science

Happiness is an interesting concept – we spend much of our lives chasing it, yet very few people define themselves as being 100 percent happy, no matter the level of their material wealth.

Actually, there is a reason for that, and the idea has been labeled the hedonic threadmill. No matter how much we get in life, we adjust to it very rapidly, so even the biggest lottery win will bring us happiness for a few months only.

This is one of the many interesting findings about happiness that Daniel Nettle write about in his book. (Despite the title, it is not at all a new age self-help kind of book – although it actually explains why these books sell so well.) Instead, Happiness presents a well-written summary of the latest knowledge about happiness as a scientific subject

The books ends with an informative review of how people can work on increasing their happiness. Amusingly, one of these pieces of advice is simply to do more of the things that make you happy. This may sound completely self-evident – and it is – but the troubling thing is that many people actually spend their lives doing anything but the things that would make them happy. Read it to get an explanation as to why this is.

Igor, Bring Me A Brain

A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives
Author: Cordelia Fine
Genre: Popular Science

Interesting, well-written and entertaining book about the peculiarities of the brain we walk around with, and how it influences our judgments and our actions.

The Book of Illusions

The Book of Illusions
Author: Paul Auster
Genre: Fiction

I actually don’t like Paul Auster’s books too much. Acclaimed literary wunderkind or not, I generally find his writing overly artificial (this impression based on having read the New York Trilogy and The Music of Chance, which may be too small a sample to judge him). Frankly speaking, in these books, I feel that he sometimes drops the ball in the quest to produce intellectual writing.

However, I really liked The Book of Illusions, which is both beautifully written and – unlike the above books – actually has a real ending, as Auster tells the story of an author who goes in search of a lost actor from the silent-movie days. He definitely has a way with words, and in this book, his abilities are not hampered by a plot that is too contrived. I’d be happy to hear of other Auster titles in the same vein.