What I read on my Winter Break

Being a college professor has some perks. One of which is the break between the Fall and the Spring Semesters. It's an Oasis. Really.

I've taken this wonderful break from all things social media related, work related and news releated. I can't really say I went "off-grid" since I did play Warcraft quite a bit and monitored my personal email....but work-related stuff went "poof" for a few weeks.

You should try it.

It is AMAZING.

Anyway, during this time I also read some books. One of which has NOTHING at all do to professionally, so I won't talk about that (smile). However I did read a new book (thanks to a friend's Amazon Vine) prior to "publication date".

Let me start by stating clearly that I highly recommend this book. I will be figuring out how to incorporate it into my classes -- most probably the Marketing Management class. The book: It's "The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation" by Marty Neumeier. It comes out on January 15th. Here's the Amazon Link (unfortunately I was unable to find the book site -- there is one for ZAG: http://www.zagbook.com/, but not for this one...yet).


Let's get to it...Why do I like this book? Because it addresses creating a culture of innovation and how to do it, points out the shift in business from linear/production line thinking to more design-oriented thinking, and it links successful "nuggets" to how designful practices have helped companies to innovate and foster creativity across all programs and departments and disciplines.

I liked the presentation of the book overall -- the "Whiteboard" concept that all three in the series from Neumeier (Brand Gap and Zag) have. Quick, to the point, and easy to take away information. As a marketing prof, it provides some interesting food for thought around the concept of wicked problems, the aesthetics of management, deep design, the use of metateams, the application of stage-gate investing, the "Thinking Hat" process for meeting management, brand training and the design learning loop (this one I REALLY like).

At the end of the book there are the "powerpoint bullets" of the book, how to use designful thinking to address wicked problems and a list of recommended other reads. Nice stuff.

Some important take aways for me included:

Design is rapidly spreading from "posters and toasters" to processes, systems, and organizations.

Agility is an emergent property that appears when an organization has the right mindset, the right skills and the ability to multiply those skills through collaboration.

A designer is anyone who tries to change an existing situation to an improved one.

The traditional management model is a veritable thrift store of hand-me-down concepts, all designed for a previous need and a previous era.

Companies don't fail because they choose the wrong course -- they fail because they can't imagine a better one.

While revolution must be led from the top, it rarely starts at the top.

In an age of accelerating change, how you learn is vastly more important than what you learn.

The ability to acquire new knowledge quickly is the fundamental skill that underpins a culture of innovation.

How do you measure talent? How do you increase inspiration? How do you crank up creative joy? The answer to all of these is the same: recognition.

Sweet book.