Clearly, the twelve innovation masters mentioned in chapter 2 don’t have a monopoly on interesting ideas. Some books you are likely to find most helpful include the following:
Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (New York: Harper, 2008) (a very accessible entry point into behavioral psychology)
Amar Bhidé, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) (lots of information about the reality of starting businesses up)
Robert Burgelman, Strategy Is Destiny:How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company’s Future (New York: Free Press, 2002) (explains the principle of emergent strategy in great detail)
Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (New York: Random House, 2007) (how to communicate concepts in ways that make them stick); and Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (New York: Broadway Books, 2010) (how to drive behavior change)
Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (New York: Portfolio, 2004) (tips and tricks for starting a new business); Guy Kawasaki, “How to Change the World: A Practical Blog for Impractical People,” blog.guykawasaki.com/ (Kawasaki’s popular blog); and anything else written by Kawasaki
W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy:How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005) (additional thoughts and tools to help innovators spot new market spaces)
Mark W. Johnson, Seizing the White Space:Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2010) (Johnson is a colleague and a friend, but his book is a legitimately great read on the important topic of business model innovation)
David Kord Murray, Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (New York: Gotham Books, 2009) (as good a book as I’ve seen on using simple principles to come up with ideas)
Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2010) (wonderfully designed book with a good set of tools to foster the creation of new business models)
Philip Rosenzweig, The Halo Effect … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers (New York: Free Press, 2007) (thoughtful critique that debunks the findings in a range of seemingly scholarly business books)
Peter Sims, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries (New York: Free Press, 2011) (highly accessible book describing the principles of “emergent strategy”)
People interested in learning more about the topics covered in the twenty-eight-day innovation program should check out the following books (note some of these overlap with books mentioned elsewhere in The Little Black Book).
WEEK 1: DISCOVERING OPPORTUNITIES
Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From:The Natural History of Innovation (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010)
A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan, The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation (New York: Crown Business, 2008)
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2008)
Clotaire Rapaille, The Culture Code:An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Buy and Live as They Do (New York: Broadway Books, 2007)
Gerald Zaltman, How Customers Think:Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003)
WEEK 2: BLUEPRINT IDEAS
Scott D. Anthony et al., The Innovator’s Guide to Growth:Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008), especially chapter 5, “Developing Disruptive Ideas”
Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick:Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (New York: Random House, 2007)
Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004)
Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From:The Natural History of Innovation (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010)
W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy:How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005)
David Kord Murray, Borrowing Brilliance:The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (New York: Gotham Books, 2009)
Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2010)
WEEK 3: ASSESSING AND TESTING IDEAS
Steven Gary Blank, Four Steps to the Epiphany (San Mateo, CA: Cafepress.com, 2005)
Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, The Other Side of Innovation:Solving the Execution Challenge (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2010)
Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan, Discovery-Driven Growth:A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009)
John Mullins and Randy Komisar, Getting to Plan B:Breaking Through to a Better Business Model (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009)
WEEK 4: MOVING FORWARD
Scott D. Anthony et al., The Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2008)
Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor, The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003)
Jeffrey Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s DNA:Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2011)
Richard N. Foster and Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction:Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market, and How to Successfully Transform Them (New York: Currency/Doubleday, 2001)
Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005)
Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start:The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (New York: Portfolio, 2004)
Morgan McCall, High Flyers:Developing the Next Generation of Leaders (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998)
Michael L. Tushman and Charles A. O’Reilly III, Winning Through Innovation:A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002)