30 Oct, 2008
Relevance by Tim Manners.
Becoming and maintaining a solid brand is no easy feat. Stare at the numbers too long and too much and you lose the connection to your customer, which happen to be human, not a piece of data. Rather than find yourself in the position of having your advertising try to talk someone into something, join Tim to discover how to find innovation that keeps your brand something people want.
I talk with Tim about the overabundance of advertising and its effect, whether its better to be who you are or let the customer decide, and what “Relevance” looks like.
More about Tim at Reveries.com and TimManners.com
23 Oct, 2008
Iconoclast by Gregory Berns.
Being different or thinking different is a common theme in business growth and innovation. The approach in other books is looking at ways to be creative and generate new ideas. Greg’s approach is from science; he’s looking at what’s going on in the brain while all of this is going on. Come to find out, the brain wants to be efficient, so it takes shortcuts all the time. If you want innovation, you’ll have to take a different approach if you want to see things differently.
Greg discusses the characteristics of an iconoclast, what might help in uncovering a new idea, and advice for teams.
29 Sep, 2008
How the Wise Decide: The Lessons of 21 Extraordinary Leaders by Bryn Zeckhauser.
A day for firm decisions… or is it? We’re gathering info and making choices all the time. How do excellent leaders do it? How do they decide A or B, and see it through? How do they handle the tough calls? The authors interviewed 21 long-standing successful leaders in business (and life) to find out what the common traits were. It looks at how they gather information, decide, and then execute.
I talk with Byrn about how to get politics and turf wars out the decision, and how to “fill a room with barbarians”, and have anything good come out at all. 
More at the book website.
28 Jul, 2008
Innovator’s Guide to Growth by Scott D. Anthony.
There’s nothing like a good innovation to create a market and drive your company’s growth. This book looks at how to:
- Identify potential innovation opportunities
- Formulate and shape ideas
- Build an innovation business
- Build innovation capabilities
I talk with Scott about where to look for innovation, how to increase your odds of success and how to handle an innovation that’s a paradigm shift – solving a problem that people don’t know they have. Scott blogs at HBSP, and is the president of Innosight. Tools for innovator at the book website.
15 May, 2008
Big Ideas to Big Results by Michael Kanazawa and Robert Miles
You probably know where you want to go, it’s the getting there that’s the problem. You’re not alone as Fortune 500 companies to the shop on the corner have experienced the same frustration. Based on a methodology that started some 25 years ago at Harvard, the authors have worked to enable businesses of all sizes see their ideas become reality.
I talk with Mike about the beginnings, how this book aides in getting an idea launched (rather than have it stall), and aligning the troops.
Link:
www.BigIdeasToBigResults.com
Big Ideas Blog
