What can a book over 20 years old tell us about innovation today? What can a book that focuses on understanding how the future will unfold assist us with building better products now? If you haven’t read the book The Art of the Long View, let me recommend that you pick it up.
The most important people in your life show you who you really are. I’ve had many, but two stand out – Clayton Christiansen (disruptive innovation) and M.J. Kirton (Kirton Adaption-Innovation or KAI). They are definers of the difference between adapting and innovating and they helped me understand that the market really needs two kinds of developers – ones who improve things and ones who break the mold.
Author Joshua Wolf Shenk identifies qualities in creative duos that produce a dialogue of creative thinking. Drawing on academic research and historical evidence, he shows why two is the magic number. This yin and yang strength is evidenced in pairs as varied as Paul McCartney and John Lennon, Marie and Pierre Curie, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and many more.
How do you define and use creative thinking in your daily job and in your company? Does the idea of a group brainstorm in a meeting facility immediately come to mind? Any other technique equally comes to the fore?