Books on Innovation
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
It's been a tough year, but the slew of innovation-and-design-related books that piled up on our desks proved that the heart of the book publishing industry still beats, at least for now. Not surprisingly, many of these texts tackled the theme of innovation in a recession, though the authors' strategies for dealing with the downturn varied. Some urged the adoption of entirely new ways of thinking to lift companies from the mire.
Best 2009 Books on Innovation and Design
Discovery-Driven Growth
Acknowledging that innovation is a tricky beast to implement even at the best of times, McGrath, from Columbia Business School, and MacMillan, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Wharton School, offer a guide for executives looking to focus on growth while minimizing risk. With a wealth of examples showing the diversity of potential approaches—from top-down, CEO-driven innovation to stealthy, guerrilla-style initiatives—this is a smart, supremely practical guide.
Connected: Surprising Power of Our Social Networks
Social networking probably wins the prize as the business buzz phrase of 2009. Former Harvard colleagues Christakis and Fowler take an intellectual but accessible approach to their subject matter. Outlining the principles of network theory before diving in to show their ideas in action in the real world, the authors make a persuasive case for the power of social networks to affect everything and everyone.
We're often told that innovation is more art than science, with no way to guarantee success. Two professors at Pennsylvania's Wharton School, however, lay out a series of scientific principles and tools that they say can help make the management of innovation if not foolproof, then at least more systematic. The authors show their dry, academic roots at times in this serious, thoughtful read.
Innovation Tournaments
In Pursuit of Elegance
Tax Returns Add Fuel to Tax Debate Fire April 13 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, paid a 20.5 percent federal tax rate on $789,674 in adjusted gross income for 2011, according to tax returns released today by the White House. Hans Nichols and Peter Cook report on Bloomberg Television's "InBusiness With Margaret Brennan." (Source: Bloomberg) Earnings Season Roundup