“As we … hold moral debates over the addictive quality of games, and simultaneously rush to achieve massive industry expansion, a vital point is being missed. The fact that so many people of all ages, all over the world, are choosing to spend so much time in game worlds is a sign of something important, a truth we urgently need to recognize. The truth is this: in today’s society, computer and video games are fulfilling genuine human needs that the real world is currently unable to satisfy. Games are providing rewards that reality is not. They are teaching and inspiring and engaging us in ways that reality is not. They are bringing us together in ways that reality is not.”
So states Jane McGonigal in a fascinating look at the world of gaming – and how we might capture an innovative approach to fixing the world of business. It is one of the best books I have consumed this year. The message is disturbing – as it should be. Our organizations are busy claiming creativity and innovation and doing little of it except posturing. We are not utilizing the untapped potential of our human capital and if we continue in this way, North America is in danger of becoming a third world nation.
So, solutions? Perhaps its time to broaden our lens and see where passion is hiding in full view.
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
Last week I spent in Ottawa with the Conference Board as an advisor to the National Council for Client Relationships and Customer Experience. One of the presenters had some interesting tools to offer for innovative thinking. Tim Hurson’s book, Think Better, is a great find for anyone struggling with shifting to an innovative culture. Full of brainstorming tools, you can only create the future by beginning to imagine it. This book is food for thought.
Many of the tools of the trade in innovation consulting are passed from one facilitator to another – something like our version of a secret handshake. Seldom written down, they are passed using the ancient/modern oral tradition of storytelling. “We met with X company and did Y activity and boy, did it work!” In Gamestorming – A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers and Changemakers, you get full membership in the secret club. Gray, Brown and Macanufo have compiled a great selection of exercises that will energize the brain of any participant and warm the heart and hards of every facilitator who has been tasked with producing ‘innovation.’ Magic!
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers
Starting a new job is always challenging so mea culpa for my absence! Making the move to Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning was made easy by the welcoming faculty and staff and I’m loving it! So, look for some good things to be coming out of Sheridan soon. The Faculty of Business is on the move.
Now back to book reviews. I am delighted to be able to feature “Business Model You”, a great little addition to anyone’s library. Written by Tim Clark, in collaboration with Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur AND 328 work-life wizards from 43 countries. And yes, I am one of the work-life wizards–a small contribution to the process. Following on the success of Business Model Generation, this little gem is full of ways to reinvent your career. Its a fun read. Enjoy!
Business Model You: A One-Page Method For Reinventing Your Career
If you are looking for an interesting book to start off 2012, the Digital Innovation Playbook might be for you. Author and Innovator Nicholas Webb has provided his unique perspective on the use of digital and social media to drive customer value. Rules of successful innovation management have changed drastically. Topical questions such as:
o How does the digital universe is driving the most innovative organizations?
o How do you increase breakthrough in incremental innovation?
o How do you digitize open innovation?
o and for all you number crunchers out there, How do you build sales while reducing costs?
will be explored and answered. Do you need a digital culture? Yes, most certainly. Corporate culture is the foundation on which you build your organization and your ability to innovate. Webb speaks to the need for active listening – a novel concept to many organizations who pay lip service to ‘customer feedback’ but do not actually listen to what their customers want. Digital technologies can provide a listening platform that will drive profitability and develop an authentic relationship with your customer. Why pay attention? As Peter Drucker so wisely stated “there will be two kinds of managers – those who think in terms of a world economy and those who are unemployed.” Webb gives insights into reaching and listening to that world economy. You choose which manager you wish to be.
Best wishes for 2012!
The Digital Innovation Playbook: Creating a Transformative Customer Experience
10 years after the success of ‘Good to Great‘, author Jim Collins returns with some interesting findings. Top contenders are findings such as the ability to scale innovation and to blend creativity and discipline. I have long argued that creativity is not ‘flakey’ but the most disciplined that you will ever be (Collins = hedgehog). That creative discipline delivers on performance goals and is consistent with values-in-action. The ability to marry relentless discipline with focused creativity is more important now that ever before. What also hasn’t changed is the leadership mandate of serving a cause bigger than personal ego. The rest is new findings, not a rehash of old results. Emphasis is on long-term strategy – a 20 mile march. Hopefully we have learned by now that a focus on short-term results leads to trouble if not extinction. I love the concept of ‘zoom-out then zoom-in’ – holding both a mega and micro view builds on what we know of complexity theory that is driving business results, SMaC (specific, methodical and consistent) and the genius of the ‘and’. A worthwhile read.
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All
If you ever wondered what role emotion plays in consumer behavior or just human behavior, this book would be a great addition to your library. Candace Pert is an internationally recognized expert, a neuroscientist whose extraordinary career began with her 1972 discovery of the opiate receptor in the brain and neuropeptides – the molecules of emotion in our brain and body. She appeared as one of the experts in Bill Moyers 1993 PBS video production, “Healing and the Mind” and many other segments on how our brains process information and emotion. So how does this chemical soup affect our brain and behavior? Interesting to find out!!
From Google Books:
“The journey Pert takes us on in Molecules of Emotion is one of personal as well as scientific discovery. Woven into her lucid explanations of the science underlying her work is the remarkable story of how, faced with personal and professional obstacles, she has grown as a woman and a mother and how her personal and spiritual development has made possible her remarkable scientific career. Molecules of Emotion is a landmark work, full of insight and wisdom and possessing that rare power to change the way we see the world and ourselves. Pert’s striking conclusion that it is our emotions and their biological components that establish the crucial link between mind and body does not, however, serve to repudiate modern medicine’s gains; rather, her findings complement existing techniques by offering a new scientific understanding of the power of our minds and our feelings to affect our health and well-being.”
Molecules Of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine
Check out a new documentary special coming out that explores some of the best in brain/behavior research.
The popular press tells us that if we understand brain basics, we will sell more – products or services, no matter. What matters is understanding insights brought to market research by neurophysiology and psychosocioimmunology. How the brain works. How the brain processes and stores information given that we take in approximately 11 million bits of information every second. So with this magnitude of information overload, how to sell to the subconscious mind? While I don’t necessarily agree with everything the author is proposing, and I am not rushing out to purchase an EEG, or fMRI, there is enough here to make the topic substantive and worth the read.
The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind
Douglas Holt brought us the classic “How Brands Become Icons” and he and partner Douglas Cameron have given us another soon to be classic, Cultural Strategy. We are offered some great tidbits such as : how do you find the next market opportunity or how to design a product to meet the new market? Finally utilizing the power of corporate culture and how you harness it, Holt and Cameron emphasize that innovation is as much about culture as it is about product or market development. Do you have a culture capable of not only withstanding ‘being different’ but supporting that difference to drive economic growth? If you are wondering what you need to succeed, this book is for you.
Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies to Build Breakthrough Brands
Every so often I purchase a book as soon as it hits the bookstores. Every so often, I sit and read a book cover to cover. This book is worth that level of commitment. Walter Isaacson has written a masterful account of the life of Steve Jobs.
This book was a revelation as to the unwavering determination of Jobs in delivering on his vision. Isaacson doesn’t pull his punches as to how difficult Jobs could be professionally or personally. Jobs was determined from the outset to connect creativity with technology and managed to revolutionize six industries: personal computers, animation, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing. Rebel, genius, sometimes a jerk – Jobs epitomized the force needed to sustainably drive ideas to action. If you haven’t seen his Stanford graduation address, it’s a great place to start before opening the book.
In Job’s own words:
“I hate it when people call themselves ‘entrepreneurs’ when what they are trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That’s how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now.”
For all that follow or are curious of the ‘cult of apple’, this is a great read. For all those who choose to stand on the shoulders of giants, who are determined to innovate, to “think different”, this book provides both instruction and inspiration. A joy to add to my book collection. A loss of a great mind. My hope is that his dream lives on.
