innovation

Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates
$35.00
The book is a guide on how to develop an innovation culture inside an organization. Industry agnostic, and with a lot of good examples, it illustrates the main steps an organization should take to gain a competitive advantage through innovation. Its focus is on new concepts like crowd sourcing and openness to customers, employees and even competitors rather the traditional secrecy of the R&D department, and has a broad perspective on innovation, not simply NPD. I recommend it to anyone interested in innovation management.

The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
$29.95
I got to about the halfway point of the audio version and then couldn't get any further.

I am impressed with what IDEO has accomplished, and if I were looking for a history of the firm this would be it. As general advice for someone managing innovation, though, it's at best something to skim through for the high points, which could be summarized in two or three pages.

Also, many of the suggestions that might have been new in 2001 are "old hat" in 2009. That fact may actually be a testament to the success of the firm and its methods, but it does make the book less practical for a reader picking it up today.

One thing I did come away curious about was how the firm and its clients have dealt with the economic downturn, which affects us all and which calls for creative solutions to all kinds of problems. Perhaps they will come out with a second edition that includes stories from the crisis period...

Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It
$34.99
Unfortunately this review of "making innovation work" will not be positive. I just finished a Ph.D in Innovation management and I could not get through more than 20 pages before putting this book down in disgust. I found too many things passed off as truths or absolutes which were not, and the book seems to have a sloppy structure and seemed to be written in a hurry. For example, you can not summarize the complexities of innovation leadership in one chapter, books like the "Global Brain" make an attempted at this, but the subject is so complexes that even attempting it in one chapter is a joke.

For this an several other reasons I would not recommend reading this book, because it could give one a false understanding of particular parts of innovation. Seasoned innovation practitioner especially will find NO VALUE from this book. If anything this is a book for beginners to get a basic hold on concepts.
That is my take
Dr. Brian Glassman
Ph.D in Innovation Management from Purdue University (2009)
See my other review by clicking on my name

The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
$29.95
This book is a must learn and share this information with colleagues inside the organization to build a new organization that will change the meaning of working and fun!