The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs


Carmine Gallo - 2010
    Now, he shares the Apple CEO's most famous, most original, and most effective strategies for sparking true creativity--and real innovation--in any workplace.THE INNOVATION SECRETS OF STEVE JOBSLearn how to RETHINK your business, REINVENT your products, and REVITALIZE your vision of success--the Steve Jobs way.When it comes to innovation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is legendary. His company slogan "Think Different" is more than a marketing tool. It's a way of life--a powerful, positive, game-changing approach to innovation that anyone can apply to any field of endeavor.These are the Seven Principles of Innovation, inspired by the master himself:Do What You Love. Think differently about your career. Put a Dent in the Universe. Think differently about your vision. Kick Start Your Brain. Think differently about how you think. Sell Dreams, Not Products. Think differently about your customers. Say No to 1,000 Things. Think differently about design. Create Insanely Great Experiences. Think differently about your brand experience. Master the Message. Think differently about your story. By following Steve Jobs's visionary example, you'll discover exciting new ways to unlock your creative potential and to foster an environment that encourages innovation and allows it to flourish. You'll learn how to match--and beat--the most powerful competitors, develop the most revolutionary products, attract the most loyal customers, and thrive in the most challenging times. Bestselling business journalist Carmine Gallo has interviewed hundreds of successful professionals--from CEOs, managers, and entrepreneurs to teachers, consultants, and stay-at-home moms--to get to the core of Steve Jobs's innovative philosophies. These are the simple, meaningful, and attainable principles that drive us all to "Think Different." These are The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs.An enhanced ebook is now available with 10 demonstration videos of Jobs' sure-fire innovation secrets. Select the Kindle Edition with Audio/Video from the available formats.

The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators


Jeffrey H. Dyer - 2011
    This innovation advantage will translate into a premium in your company’s stock price—an innovation premium—which is possible only by building the code for innovation right into your organization’s people, processes, and guiding philosophies.Practical and provocative, The Innovator’s DNA is an essential resource for individuals and teams who want to strengthen their innovative prowess.

Impact Mapping: Making a Big Impact with Software Products and Projects


Gojko Adzic - 2012
    The result is a tremendous amount of time and money wasted due to wrong assumptions, lack of focus, poor communication of objectives, lack of understanding and misalignment with overall goals. There has to be a better way to deliver!This handbook is a practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organisations make an impact with software. Impact mapping helps to create better plans and roadmaps that ensure alignment of business and delivery, and are easily adaptable to change. Impact mapping fits nicely into several current trends in software product management and release planning, including goal-oriented requirements engineering, frequent iterative delivery, agile and lean software methods, lean startup product development cycles, and design thinking.Who is this book for?The primary audience of this book are senior people involved in building software products or delivering software projects, from both business and delivery sides. This includes business sponsors and those whose responsibilities include product ownership, project oversight or portfolio management, architecture, business analysis, quality improvement and assurance and delivery. - Business people assigned to software projects will learn how to communicate their ideas better.- Senior product or project sponsors will learn how to communicate their assumptions more effectively to delivery teams, how to engage delivery teams to make better strategic decisions, and how to manage their project portfolio more effectively.- Delivery teams that are already working under the umbrella of agile or lean delivery methods, and more recently lean startup ideas, will learn how to better focus deliverables and engage business sponsors and users.- Delivery teams moving to agile or lean delivery methods will get ideas on how to address some common issues with scaling these practices, such as creating a big picture view, splitting work into small chunks that still have business value and reporting progress more meaningfully.About the authorGojko Adzic is a strategic software delivery consultant who works with ambitious teams to improve the quality of their software products and processes. Gojko won the 2012 Jolt Award for the best book, was voted by peers as the most influential agile testing professional in 2011, and his blog won the UK Agile Award for the best online publication in 2010. To get in touch, write to gojko@neuri.co.uk or visit http://gojko.net.

The Cold Start Problem


Andrew Chen - 2021
    Startups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of “the network effect,” where a product or service’s value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them, whether they’re messaging apps, workplace collaboration tools, or marketplaces. Network effects provide a path for fledgling products to break through, attracting new users through viral growth and word of mouth.Yet most entrepreneurs lack the vocabulary and context to describe them—much less understand the fundamental principles that drive the effect. What exactly are network effects? How do teams create and build them into their products? How do products compete in a market where every player has them? Andrew Chen draws on his experience and  on interviews with the CEOs and founding teams of LinkedIn, Twitch, Zoom, Dropbox, Tinder, Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest — to provide unique insights in answering these questions. Chen also provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries. The Cold Start Problem reveals what makes winning networks successful, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.

Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation


Robert Keith Sawyer - 2006
    In the last 50 yearss, psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists have increasingly studied creativity, and we now know more about creativity that at any point in history. Explaining Creativity considers not only arts like painting and writing, but also science, stage performance, and business innovation. Until about a decade ago, creativity researchers tended to focus on highly valued activities like fine art painting and Nobel prize winning science. Sawyer brings this research up to date by including movies, music videos, cartoons, videogames, hypertext fiction, and computer technology. For example, this is the first book on creativity to include studies of performance and improvisation. Sawyer draws on the latest research findings to show the importance of collaboration and context in all of these creative activities.Today's science of creativity is interdisciplinary; in addition to psychological studies of creativity, Explaining Creativity includes research by anthropologists on creativity in non-Western cultures, and research by sociologists about the situations, contexts, and networks of creative activity. Explaining Creativity brings these approaches together within the sociocultural approach to creativity pioneered by Howard Becker, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Howard Gardner. The sociocultural approach moves beyond the individual to consider the social and cultural contexts of creativity, emphasizing the role of collaboration and context in the creative process.

Ideaspotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea


Sam Harrison - 2006
    Sam Harrison offers ways to generate creative business ideas, inspires observation-fuelled exploration to ignite the creative process, accelerates the occurences of spontaneity, serendipity and synchronicity, and encourage open eyes and ears in new places and familiar surroundings.

Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems


Betsy Beyer - 2016
    So, why does conventional wisdom insist that software engineers focus primarily on the design and development of large-scale computing systems?In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google's Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You'll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient--lessons directly applicable to your organization.This book is divided into four sections: Introduction--Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practicesPrinciples--Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE)Practices--Understand the theory and practice of an SRE's day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systemsManagement--Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use

Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best


Srinivas Rao - 2016
    Now Srinivas Rao explains the power of "unmistakable"--creating work that no one can replicate, thereby eliminating your competition. After getting rejected from many business schools and fired from several sales jobs, Srinivas Rao decided to stop doing what he thought he was supposed to do and start working in a way that felt honest. He launched the Unmistakable Creative Podcast to interview some of the greatest minds in business--including Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Pam Slim, Elle Luna, and Ryan Holiday--finding a surprisingly big audience. This book distills the lessons, anecdotes, and insights of the 500+ people he has interviewed. Unmistakable art needs no signature. As soon as it's in front of you, you know exactly who created it, like Banksy's street art or Tim Burton's films. Whether you're a business owner, artist, or anything in between, when your work is unmistakable, your competition becomes irrelevant. They can't copy you.  The key to being unmistakable is to stop trying to be the best--because that would mean you're sticking to plans and rules that have already been set for you, choosing what's safe and reliable. Rao argues that your most meaningful, impactful, and joyful work exists outside the "being the best" mindset, if you can strip away the expectations and pressure that you've internalized--to lead you to be the only.

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days


Jake Knapp - 2016
    And now there’s a sure-fire way to solve their problems and test solutions: the sprint.While working at Google, designer Jake Knapp created a unique problem-solving method that he coined a “design sprint”—a five-day process to help companies answer crucial questions. His ‘sprints’ were used on everything from Google Search to Chrome to Google X. When he moved to Google Ventures, he joined Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky, both designers and partners there who worked on products like YouTube and Gmail. Together Knapp, Zeratsky, and Kowitz have run over 100 sprints with their portfolio companies. They’ve seen firsthand how sprints can overcome challenges in all kinds of companies: healthcare, fitness, finance, retailers, and more.A practical guide to answering business questions, Sprint is a book for groups of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to non-profits. It’s for anyone with a big opportunity, problem, or idea who needs to get answers today.

Out of the Crisis


W. Edwards Deming - 1982
    Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment.According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.Previously published by MIT-CAES

The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress


Virginia Postrel - 1998
    Yet a chorus of intellectuals and politicians laments our current condition -- as slaves to technology, coarsened by popular culture, and insecure in the face of economic change. The future, they tell us, is dangerously out of control, and unless we precisely govern the forces of change, we risk disaster. In The Future and Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel explodes the myths behind these claims. Using examples that range from medicine to fashion, she explores how progress truly occurs and demonstrates that human betterment depends not on conformity to one central vision but on creativity and decentralized, open-ended trial and error. She argues that these two opposing world-views -- "stasis" vs. "dynamism" -- are replacing "left" and "right" to define our cultural and political debate as we enter the next century. In this bold exploration of how civilizations learn, Postrel heralds a fundamental shift in the way we view politics, culture, technology, and society as we face an unknown -- and invigorating -- future.

Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries


Safi Bahcall - 2019
    Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall shows how this new kind of science helps us understand the behavior of companies and the fate of empires. Loonshots distills these insights into lessons for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries everywhere.

The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation


Adam Steltzner - 2015
    When NASA needed to land Curiosity—a 2,000-pound, $2.5 billion rover—on the surface of Mars, 140 million miles away, they turned to JPL. Steltzner’s team couldn’t test their kooky solution, the Sky Crane. They were on an unmissable deadline, and the world would be watching when they succeeded—or failed. At the helm of this effort was an unlikely rocket scientist and accidental leader, Adam Steltzner. After barely graduating from high school, he followed his curiosity to the local community college to find out why the stars moved. Soon he discovered an astonishing gift for math and physics. After getting his Ph.D. he ensconced himself within JPL, NASA’s decidedly unbureaucratic cousin, where success in a mission is the only metric that matters.  The Right Kind of Crazy is a first-person account of innovation that is relevant to any­one working in science, art, or technology. For instance, Steltzner describes: ·How his team learned to switch from fear-based to curiosity-based decision making·How to escape “The Dark Room”—the creative block caused by fear, uncertainty, and the lack of a clear path forward·How to tell when we’re too in love with our own ideas to be objective about them—and, conversely, when to fight for them·How to foster mutual respect within teams while still bashing bad ideas The Right Kind of Crazy is a book for anyone who wants to channel their craziness into creativity, balance discord and harmony, and find a signal in a flood of noise.

Will Happiness Find Me?


Peter Fischli - 2003
    An artist's book by the renowned Swiss duo dedicated to the questions that everyone asks themselves once in a while: Can something be unbelievable? Should I get drunk? Could I be Japanese? Is the freedom of birds overrated? Am I a farmer in winter? Does unease grow by itself? Should I crawl into my bed and stop producing things all the time?

A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age


Jimmy Soni - 2017
    He constructed a fleet of customized unicycles and a flamethrowing trumpet, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots. He also wrote the seminal text of the digital revolution, which has been called “the Magna Carta of the Information Age.” His discoveries would lead contemporaries to compare him to Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. His work anticipated by decades the world we’d be living in today—and gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass.In this elegantly written, exhaustively researched biography, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman reveal Claude Shannon’s full story for the first time. It’s the story of a small-town Michigan boy whose career stretched from the era of room-sized computers powered by gears and string to the age of Apple. It’s the story of the origins of our digital world in the tunnels of MIT and the “idea factory” of Bell Labs, in the “scientists’ war” with Nazi Germany, and in the work of Shannon’s collaborators and rivals, thinkers like Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Vannevar Bush, and Norbert Wiener.And it’s the story of Shannon’s life as an often reclusive, always playful genius. With access to Shannon’s family and friends, A Mind at Play brings this singular innovator and creative genius to life.