I have not yet read this book but have skimmed it.  The basis of the book is around a common tool used in ideation called "medici".  The concept is to randomly combine ideas to create new ideas that you would have never come up with.

It's all about using randomness to get us out of a rut - to explore the unknown and to look beyond the obvious.

I was sent this book from a business associate and I love it!!  I'm a visual thinker and always looking for books, tools, etc to help take complex subjects and convert them to something that anyone can understand.

As I've said many times -- where most great ideas fail to gain traction is in the ability of the champion to "tell the story".  This book is a great tool to helping you build and present the story.

I recently got this book (still reading it) and think it would be a good read for those of you struggling with getting your management teams to "get it" .....

Some comments/review by others ....

If you're like most business leaders, innovation now tops your corporate agenda. But despite all the talk and excitement about the importance of innovation, managers have so far found scant help for innovating in a systematic way that fuels consistent growth and sustained success.

In Innovation to the Core, Strategos CEO Peter Skarzynski and business strategist Rowan Gibson change all that. They share the accumulated wisdom from Strategos--the consulting firm Skarzynski co-founded with Gary Hamel that helps clients instill innovation into their very core. Drawing on a wealth of stories and examples, the book shows how companies of every stripe have overcome the barriers to successful, profitable innovation. You'll find parts devoted to crucial topics--such as how to organize the discovery process, generate strategic insights, enlarge your innovation pipeline, and maximize your return on innovation. Frequent hands-on tools--frameworks, checklists, probing questions--help you put the book's ideas into action.

Aims to give managers insights into innovation within their organization and accelerates the development of creative performance in their staff.

Note:  I have not actually reviewed this magazine.  It was recommended by others.

What is creativity? Is it a force? An innate capacity? A planned process? Who has access to creativity and who does not? Ruth Richards, leading creativity researcher and editor of Everyday Creativity argues against the notion of exclusive creativity, saying instead that creativity a universal ability, accessible to everyone. An innate ability with the capacity to make our lives happier and more fulfilling, an ability that unfortunately for most of us falls by the wayside or is regrettably underutilized and underdeveloped. Richards states, "Everyday creativity is about everyone, throughout our lives, and fundamental to our very survival. It is how we find our lost child, get enough to eat, make our way in a new place and culture...With our everyday creativity, we adapt flexibly, we improvise, we try different options, whether we are raising a child, counseling a friend, fixing our home, or planning a fundraising event."

Much of the literature you read on building teams in the workplace deal with the internal interactions of the group... how they get along, building morale, etc. Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman offer up a different take on team success in the book X-teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate and Succeed.  The most noticeable difference between the conventional team and the X-Team is the focus of their activity... external. Instead of spending time waiting for the team to gel and feel secure, waiting for the rules and directions to be established, Ancona and Bresman advocate for an external focus. Get out in the field immediately and start talking to the potential customers and clients. This tilt towards immediate action may well lead to a moderate level of confusion and frustration on the team in the early days, but the net result is a quick start and insights that can't be gleaned from existing knowledge. Couple this with active "ambassadorship" and flexible membership and team roles, and things get done rather than just being talked about.

Unlike any other hip-hop documentary to date, Soundz of Spirit is a riveting feature-length documentary film that explores the relationship between the creative process and spirituality in hip-hop culture.  The documentary captures artists in their moments of inspiration and takes in-depth looks into their creative process, from conception to completion. While many of the artists featured hail from the West Coast’s underground scene, all of them are fiercely independent creative forces, and their contributions toward elevating hip-hop to a truly revolutionary worldwide movement is brilliantly showcased.

Brainwave Sound Solutions presents the 60 minute Gamma 40 Hz entertainer, designed to improve creativity, comprehension, and higher contemplation. Gamma is a high frequency band of brainwave activity, and corresponds to a Schumann resonance band at 40 Hz. Many scientists, including Nobel Laureate Sir Francis Crick, believe that brainwave activity at the gamma level may be key to the act of cognition. Gamma rhythms appear to help facilitate integration of information from brain centers involved with learning, memory, thought generation, and task processing, modulate consciousness and perception, and help combine multiple sensory inputs into single, unitary objects that we perceive.

The Innovative Leader stresses the importance of innovation and creativity in modern business to help organizations secure competitive advantage over rivals. It shows how to apply methods of innovation and creativity to the individual, to business peers, and to the organization. Author Pual Sloane demonstrates the importance of setting out your vision clearly and emphasizes the need for continual evaluation of the process. Numerous international examples illustrate how organizations such as Virgin, Body Shop, Disney, and 3M have benefited from this approach, encouraging excellence and entrepreneurship through challenging goals that keep employees motivated and engaged.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

The book explores the creative impulse and presents an approach to developing creativity that will be relevant to artists and others. The author identifies and explains seven distinct stages of the creative process: discovery and encounter, passion and commitment, crisis and creative frustration, retreat and withdrawal, epiphany and insight, discipline and completion, and responsibility and release. He also presents what he calls the three principles of the creative impulse, which include creative courage, being in the right place at the right time, and deepening connections with others.

Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want

I picked this book up when I was in Hong Kong last month and read 90% of it on the flight home. The tone is a little too self-focused for me but found the examples well worth the investment. As CEO of SRI International, Carlson has consulted with hundreds of organizations on becoming more effective and profitable. He has distilled that experience into his thoughts on the innovation process. The book cites numerous examples of innovative ideas brought to market. It outlines, in workbook fashion, what SRI calls the Five Disciplines of Innovation which is their process.

As I described my sketch kit to Alex, I thought it'd be great to share a photo and the details on Flickr and in a post on my weblog. Turns out that my Custom Moleskine Planner photo with added notes has been very popular, so I took several shots of my sketch kit and placed them on Flickr, and in this very post:

The tools include:

1. Miquelrius A5 squared notebook (300 pages)
2. HiG A4 squared notebook (96 pages)
3. Faber-Castell E-Motion 1.4mm mechanical pencil (a gift from Fazal Majid)
4. Y&C Grip 350 0.7mm mechanical pencil
5. Gray kneadable eraser
6. Artec 6" acrylic triangle
7. Pickett Inking circle template

Notebooks
The larger HiG A4 notebook is better for web and print design where the sketches may need more space, the Miquelrius A5 is smaller and more portable, and my preferred choice for logo and icon design. I especially love how flexible the Miquelrius is, allowing me to fold the covers over for sketching or scanning.

Pencils
I mainly use the Faber-Castell E-Motion for most sketches because the thick lead lays down a nice, smooth line, can put rich grays down quickly and resists breaking even when I press quite hard. The Y&C 0.7mm pencil works well for finer lines and details (more often used on web and print design comps that require fine details or handwritten descriptions.)

Support Tools
The Artec 6" acrylic triangle works well for putting down a crisp edge, and lets me see through it to the sketch underneath — handy for laying in text. My kneadable eraser is indispensable for cleaning up loose edges and stray marks (and works well for stress relief when needed). The Pickett circle guide comes in handy for quick, perfect circles, most often used on web and print design projects.

It's a simple toolkit, which works quite well... and it never needs batteries! :-)

More info ..

A common question I get from listeners of the podcast is about the creation of the "question based methodology" used in a Killer Innovations Workshop. To give you more info/background, this book will give you some insight that helped establish my thinking. I've always been a big da Vinvi fan ... and this is the best book to give you the insight without needing to wade through tough reading from some of the other books on the subject.

The basic da Vinci tools covered include ...

* Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life.
* Dimonstratzione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience.
* Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to clarify experience.
* Sfumato: A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
* Arte/Scienza: The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination ("whole-brain thinking").
* Corporalita: The cultivation of ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
* Connessione: A recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all things and phenomena; "systems thinking."

More info ..

This book is about getting better at making sense of the world...so you can make decisions that respond to reality , not some obsolete model of reality. Drawing on the latest neuroscientific research and their experience with corporate transformations, the authors explain how your mental models stand between you and reality, distorting all your perceptions...and how they create both limits and opportunities . You'll learn how to develop new ways of seeing...how to keep your mental models fresh and relevant...when to change to a new model...how to build a portfolio of models...and improving your models through constant experimentation. Better mental models = smarter decisions.

Some questions answered ...

- How do you know when an old model is worn out?
- How do you avoid "cognitive lock," filtering out information that conflicts with your model?
- How do you know a new model will live up to its hype?