Innovation Garden

A curious mind (book by Glazer & Fishman)

A Curious Mind

Brain Glazer & Charles Fishman

A Curious Mind

Brain Glazer is a producer of movies and televisions shows. This book is the story of the role curiosity, in many forms, has been a force in his life. He did not set out to work in movies but a summer job taken before law school became the entryway to this career. Looking back, Glazer recognizes that he was always curious and this curiosity was fostered by his grandmother in particular. It is clear from reading this book that Glazer has a degree of adventurousness that he has used to satisfy his curiosity.

Improv wisdom (book by Madson)

Improve wisdom

Patricia Ryan Madson

Improv wisdom

This book describes how the method and mindset of improvisational theory can be applied to everyday life and business. We all have some urge to control our lives and this often means that we can’t react to events. Improvisation is the unplanned response to events and is a skill that can be learned. Improvisation in comedy gets a lot of attention but improvisation has also been part of music, conventional theater and visual arts.

Theory U (book by Scharmer)

 Theory U Stages of Communication

C. Otto Scharmer

Theory U

 This book addresses a range of social interaction theories, but the central and most interesting theme is communication in groups. The book contains many elements that seem almost like a stream-of-consciousness description of the author’s experience in developing his central theory which is that we can choose to have more meaningful communication if we understand our communication better.

100 Things every designer needs to know about people (book by Weinschenk)

100 Things every designer needs to know about people

Susan M. Weinschenk

100 Things

This book is written primarily in the context of good web design, but has many observations that are relevant to communication, motivation, learning and decision making in general. I found it interesting to reflect on how much using a new web site depends on how I perceive the page, learn what I want to know from it and then decide whether to continue or abandon the page. By analogy, many of the decisions that I make follow the same path of perception, learning, motivation and decision. In many cases, the author adds a brief summary of modern physiological observations related to the topic at hand. My favorite relates to sensitivity: if you were standing on a high enough hill in the dark – you could see a candle 30 miles (about 50 km) away. I will try to group some of the 100 observations using the scheme described above.

Spark (book by Winsor)

Spark: be more innovative through co-creation

John Winsor

 Spark

The essence of this both is the contention that innovation is not the work of an isolated individual, but the product of people working together in a suitable organization and culture. This perspective is illustrated by the following graphic, adapted from the book.