Innovation Book Club

Empathy, empathy, empathy, it's the heart of innovation. Apparently. The problem with empathy is that innovators don't truly empathise, instead, they pick and choose feedback that meets their own preferences rather than the broader picture that better reflects the needs of the user. Indi Young addresses this by providing a better understanding of empathy and offering some approaches to utilising it without falling into familiar traps. Alex and Wais dip in to learn how to empathise...

Way back in the mists of time, before even the first iPhone was released and kickstarted a seismic shift in digital innovation, Scott Berkun wrote The Myths of Innovation, in which he explores why we have innovation all wrong. Alex and Wais dip into the book and find out what innovation looked like before lean startups and business model canvases were a thing.

If our recent fixation with innovation started anywhere, it was with Osterwalder & Pigneur's Business Model Generation which popularised the idea of business model innovation through the introduction of the business model canvas. Alex and Wais reflect on the book's legacy and relevance to the innovation landscape today.

Alex and Wais discuss Eric Ries' game-changing book The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses (2011). The book (finally) offered software developers and technology entrepreneurs an alternative to the resource-heavy and time-consuming waterfall methodology and has since become a staple of any startup. But is it all its really cracked up to be?

In this episode, Alex and Wais discuss an academic paper, ‘Ideas are born in fields of play: towards a theory of play and creativity in organisational settings’ by Charalampos Mainemelis and Sarah Ronson. The premise of this article is that play is used in organisations in two ways, either to divert us from the tedium of work or to engage us at work and promote our creativity. Play, therefore, is key to innovation, but the authors argue that we don’t know how to harness play effectively or consistently to promote innovation. You can buy the paper here (but you probably don’t want to): shorturl.at/eCTY0 If you’re enjoying the Innovation Book Club, please give us a 5-star review on your podcatcher of choice.

In this episode, Alex and Wais discuss Nilofer Merchant’s concept of ‘Onlyness’. Nilofer Merchant argues that at the heart of all ideas are human beings, but we have created a world in which powerful and entrenched hierarchies overlook those ideas that do not align with their own values and experience. Ideas, Merchant argues, are a product of our ‘onlyness’, they are the result of our own history and experience, visions and hopes, and this is what makes them unique. To give our ideas power we need to socialise them by building networks of like-minded people. You can watch Nilofer Merchant talking about onlyness here:  shorturl.at/grBCL If you’re enjoying the Innovation Book Club, please give us a 5-star review on your podcatcher of choice.

This retrospective article looks back at twenty years of disruption and argues that we’ve actually become confused about what disruptive innovation is, how it works, and the contribution it makes to innovation success. As a result, we get disruption all wrong. The authors use the example of Uber to explain how it’s not on a disruptive trajectory and shouldn’t be referred to as a disruptor. You can read the article here: shorturl.at/hmARX If you’re enjoying the Innovation Book Club, please give us a 5-star review on your podcatcher of choice.

In this first episode of the second season of the Innovation Book Club, Alex and Wais discuss ‘Incremental and Radical Innovation: Design Research vs. Technology and Meaning Change’, an article by two giants of the design industry, Roberto Verganti and Donald Norman. The authors were both interested in exploring why successive incremental innovations implemented over time never lead to radical breakthroughs. In fact, the opposite is often true. The key to unlocking this conundrum lies in the importance of meaning-based innovation that changes our understanding of what a product means for customers which then opens up new conceptual opportunities for product development because we are freed from our current paradigm of thinking. You can read the article here: shorturl.at/lAIL8 If you’re enjoying the Innovation Book Club, please give us a 5-star review on your podcatcher of choice.

Note: This episode won’t make much sense unless you’ve listened to the rest of the season first, so best to start there. In this final episode of the first season of the Innovation Book Club, Alex Drago and Wais Pirzad share their reflections on what they’ve learned from the previous seven episodes. No questions for you this time, you get an easy ride. Contact us: nadrago@gmail.com or wais.pirzad@gmail.com

In this episode of the Innovation Book Club, Alex Drago and Wais Pirzad discuss a Vice documentary based on Jeremy Rifkin’s book The Third Industrial Revolution. The book blurb: “The Industrial Revolution, powered by oil and other fossil fuels, is spiralling into a dangerous endgame. The price of gas and food are climbing, unemployment remains high, the housing market has tanked, consumer and government debt is soaring, and the recovery is slowing. Facing the prospect of a second collapse of the global economy, humanity is desperate for a sustainable economic game plan to take us into the future. Here, Jeremy Rifkin explores how Internet technology and renewable energy are merging to create a powerful "Third Industrial Revolution." He asks us to imagine hundreds of millions of people producing their own green energy in their homes, offices, and factories, and sharing it with each other in an "energy internet," just like we now create and share information online. Rifkin describes how the five-pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution will create thousands of businesses, millions of jobs, and usher in a fundamental reordering of human relationships, from hierarchical to lateral power, that will impact the way we conduct commerce, govern society, educate our children, and engage in civic life. Rifkin's vision is already gaining traction in the international community. The European Union Parliament has issued a formal declaration calling for its implementation, and other nations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, are quickly preparing their own initiatives for transitioning into the new economic paradigm. The Third Industrial Revolution is an insider's account of the next great economic era, including a look into the personalities and players — heads of state, global CEOs, social entrepreneurs, and NGOs — who are pioneering its implementation around the world.” You can watch this here: shorturl.at/rxV01 Here’s three questions to help you reflect on what you’ve just heard: 1, Rifkin makes the case that the synergies created by innovations in energy, connectivity and transport systems powered previous industrial revolutions, created economic development and generated jobs. How convinced are you by his arguments? 2, Rifkin’s ideas about a green revolution and a distributed economy powered by renewable energy, the internet of things and connected transport networks are presented as the key way to generate economic growth. What else would need to change for his ideas to succeed? 3, What areas of your work could be improved by Rifkin’s ideas if they were adopted by your company? Contact us: nadrago@gmail.com or wais.pirzad@gmail.com If you want to buy the book then consider supporting your local booksellers with Bookshop.org: shorturl.at/loxP4 Alternatively, if you want to give Jeff Bezos more of your hard-earned cash: Amazon.co.uk: shorturl.at/cgjmB Amazon.com: shorturl.at/yCORU

In this episode of the Innovation Book Club, Alex Drago and Wais Pirzad discuss Warren Berger’s noted book A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. The book’s blurb: “In this groundbreaking book, journalist and innovation expert Warren Berger shows that one of the most powerful forces for igniting change in business and in our daily lives is a simple, under-appreciated tool--one that has been available to us since childhood. Questioning--deeply, imaginatively, "beautifully"--can help us identify and solve problems, come up with game-changing ideas, and pursue fresh opportunities. So why are we often reluctant to ask "Why?" Berger's surprising findings reveal that even though children start out asking hundreds of questions a day, questioning "falls off a cliff" as kids enter school. In an education and business culture devised to reward rote answers over challenging inquiry, questioning isn't encouraged--and, in fact, is sometimes barely tolerated. And yet, as Berger shows, the most creative, successful people tend to be expert questioners. They've mastered the art of inquiry, raising questions no one else is asking--and finding powerful answers. The author takes us inside red-hot businesses like Google, Netflix, IDEO, and Airbnb to show how questioning is baked into their organizational DNA. He also shares inspiring stories of artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, basement tinkerers, and social activists who changed their lives and the world around them--by starting with a "beautiful question." You can watch Berger talk about his book here: shorturl.at/elzCN Here’s three questions to help you reflect on what you’ve just heard: 1, Why do you think Berger states that questions are now more valuable than answers? 2, When thinking about the innovation process, how is Berger’s ‘Why? What if? How?’ framework a useful guide? 3, What’s the question that you constantly return to? Is it a Why, what if or a how question? Contact us: nadrago@gmail.com or wais.pirzad@gmail.com For some reason, this book isn’t available via Bookshop.org but you can give your hard-earned cash to Jeff Bezos here: Amazon.co.uk: shorturl.at/wAFJ0 Amazon.com: shorturl.at/mwyX0

In this first and pilot episode of the Innovation Book Club, Alex Drago and Wais Pirzad discuss Steven Johnson’s book Where Good Ideas Come From: the Natural History of Innovation. Here’s the blurb: “Where do good ideas come from? And what do we need to know and do to have more of them? In Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson, one of our most innovative popular thinkers, explores the secrets of inspiration. Steven Johnson has spent twenty years immersed in creative industries, was active at the dawn of the internet and has a unique perspective that draws on his fluency in fields ranging from neurobiology to new media. Why have cities historically been such hubs of innovation? What do the printing press and Apple have in common? And what does this have to do with the creation and evolution of life itself? Johnson presents the answers to these questions and more in his infectious, culturally omnivoracious style, using examples from thinkers in a range of disciplines - from Charles Darwin to Tim Berners-Lee - to provide the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of inspiration. He identifies the six key principles to the genesis of great ideas, from the cultivation of hunches to the importance of connectivity and how best to make use of new technologies. Most exhilarating is his conclusion: with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. By recognizing where and how patterns of creativity occur - whether within a school, a software platform or a social movement - he shows how we can make more of our ideas good ones.” Steven Johnson’s TED talk on the book: shorturl.at/pOV48 Here’s three questions to help you reflect on what you’ve just heard: Steven Johnson defines innovation as the ‘adjacent possible’. In this case, ‘adjacent’ refers to a new idea and ‘possible’ refers to ideas that can be physically realised. Is this definition too simplistic to be useful? Why or why not? Steven Johnson makes the case that all new innovations are a product of their environment and that is dependent on six particular conditions: Liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation, and platforms. Which of these conditions do you think are the most and least convincing and why? Finally, Steven Johnson argues that non-market and networked ideas have become the primary source of new innovations. How does knowing this change your perspective on the development of your own ideas? Contact us: nadrago@gmail.com or wais.pirzad@gmail.com If you want to buy the book then consider supporting your local booksellers with Bookshop.org: shorturl.at/vEI06 Alternatively, if you want to give Jeff Bezos more of your hard-earned cash: Amazon.co.uk: shorturl.at/lmBGQ Amazon.com: shorturl.at/jrIKX