New Ideas about New Ideas
Insights on Creativity from the World's Leading Innovators

By Shira P. White
Financial Times / Pearson Education
October 2001
ISBN: 0-273-66168-X
351 Pages, Illustrated, 6 3/4" x 8 1/4"
$45.00 Paper Original


In this book, the author offers a fresh, lively, and inspiring perspective on innovation. What makes some people and organizations more creative than others? How do they channel their creative impulses into productive projects? How do they sustain their creative edge when resources are scarce? Drawing from hundreds of interviews with the world's most creative people (from innovative leaders at companies such as Palm, Corning and AOL, to genius architect Frank Gehry, technology oracle Nathan Myhrvold, performance artist Laurie Anderson, and biotech visionary Henri Termeer), as well as her own extensive experience as an innovation management consultant and artist, the author offers many surprising insights. For example, leading-edge innovators recognize that creativity is not a discrete "event" but a dynamic state of being. They embrace uncertainty and ambiguity. They invite conflict. They find myriad ways to diversify their "inputs" and expand the spectrums of their experience. And they are continually asking new questions, chasing new problems, and experimenting with new solutions.

Blending concepts from the worlds of management, the arts, science, and technology, the author illustrates how anyone can achieve a creative mindset and let the sparks fly. Whether you are building a new organization, turning around a company, initiating a radical education program, launching a new ad campaign or product line, or staying a step ahead of your competitors on any front, this book is bound to change the way you look at your life, your work, and your world. Contents include: Introduction, Sizzling Spaces: Making Innovation Happen, Bubbling: New Approaches to Idea Development, Bargaining with the Future: the Valuation Struggle, Going Live: Bringing New Ideas to Life, Integrated Circuitry: Mechanisms of Innovative Action, Rocket Design: Innovating the Organization, Making an Apple Pie: Beyond the Organization, Featured organizations and individual profiles, Notes, Credits, Index. About the Author: Shira P. White is President of SPWI, a leading innovation management and new product development consulting firm. An accomplished painter and writer, she has served as an instructor at the Pratt institute and lecturer at NYU's Stern Graduate School of Business and the School of Visual Arts.


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