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Book: Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want :: Robert Kiyosaki|Books :: Book
Date: Thursday, 08 January, 2009 :: 04:14
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Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want
List Price: USD $27.50
from USD $6.95
Product Group: book
Manufacturer: Crown Business
Release Date: 2006-08-08
Studio: Crown Business
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Editorial Review: Product Description
Nothing is more important to business success than innovation . . . And here?s what you can do about it on Monday morning with the definitive how-to book from the world?s leading authority on innovation
When it comes to innovation, Curt Carlson and Bill Wilmot of SRI International know what they are talking about?literally. SRI has pioneered innovations that day in and day out are part of the fabric of your life, such as:
?The computer mouse and the personal computer interface you use at home and work
?The high-definition television in your living room
?The unusual numbers at the bottom of your checks that enable your bank to maintain your account balance correctly
?The speech-recognition system used by your financial services firm when you call for your account balance or to make a transaction.
Each of these innovations?and literally hundreds of others?created new value for customers. And that?s the central message of this book. Innovation is not about inventing clever gadgets or just ?creativity.? It is the successful creation and delivery of a new or improved product or service that provides value for your customer and sustained profit for your organization. The first black-and-white television, for example, was just an interesting, cool invention until David Sarnoff created an innovation?a network?that delivered programming to an audience.
The genius of this book is that it provides the ?how? of innovation. It makes innovation practical by getting two groups who are often disconnected?the managers who make decisions and the people on the front lines who create the innovations?onto the same page. Instead of smart people grousing about the executive suite not recognizing a good idea if they tripped over it and the folks on the top floor wondering whether the people doing the complaining have an understanding of market realities, Carlson and Wilmot?s five disciplines of innovation focus attention where it should be: on the creation of valuable new products and services that meet customer needs.
Innovation is not just for the ?lone genius in the garage? but for you and everyone in your enterprise. Carlson and Wilmot provide a systematic way to make innovation practical, one intimately tied to the way things get done in your business.
Teamwork isn't enough; Creativity isn't enough; A new product idea isn't enough
True innovation is about delivering value to customers. Innovation reveals the value-creating processes used by SRI International, the organization behind the computer mouse, robotic surgery, and the domain names .com, .org, and .gov. Curt Carlson and Bill Wilmot show you how to use these practical, tested processes to create great customer value for your organization.
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Reviews:
Average Customer Review: 
Summary: Conference Attendee
Date: 2008-11-16 - 
Comment: Personally met Mr Carlson at a recent conference. I am impressed by his and SRI International's breadth of knowledge. The five disciplines are a logical approach to bringing a product to life, and could improve your success rate if followed.
Prior to the conference, I read his book with three bookmarks: One to mark my place, one for the footnotes, and the last to mark the Glossary. It took supreme effort for me to read the book (I graduated from college 45 years ago)- but without first reading it, the conference would have been wothless. Instead, that book & the conference inspired me to launch a new domain name and new to the market real estate service. Thanks for writing this book, Mr Carlson.
Summary: Misses the Mark
Date: 2008-11-06 - 
Comment: This book may not be a bad primer for readers without a business education. It does provide some basics and insight on some aspects of project selection.
However, for readers with a business education, you should find that many of the great ideas provided by the author(s) are really fundamentals of economics (the author's 'customer value' or 'benefit cost ratio'), marketing ('value creation'), and management ('organizational alignment'). Also troubling is the attempt to claim ownership and creation of these concepts.
A significant part of the text is spent presenting and re-explaining the vast and successful experience of the author(s). I write author(s) because, while two are listed, I suspect that one is a former executive and the other aided in preparing the manuscript so the reader really only gets the 'benefit' of one point of view.
Finally, very little time is actually spent on 'innovation'. What is provided is often off the mark of 'innovation' and is almost entirely anecdotal with very little empirical support for the ideas presented. The definition of innovation provided itself may be slightly off from current research on the subject. It appears that what the author is really discussing is a mix of product commercialization and product requirements generation.
All in all, the book isn't terribly written but it doesn't flow as well as it could. It does, however, almost completely miss the mark of 'innovation'. If the reader is truly looking for that subject matter, I would recommend you look elsewhere. Perhaps C.M. Christensen, T. Amabile, M.E. Raynor, or E.M. Rogers.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Summary: Business focused "innovation" as opposed to waste of time & money
Date: 2008-04-28 - 
Comment: This book is not about innovation - it is about focus on what adds value instead of "useless" projects. It is applicable within innovation, but it could be better at it. It should have been more brief and with a more structured approach.
To summarize the book:
1. The developing world will soon beat the developed.
- We must come up with new products to compete.
2. Don't waste peoples' time
- learn how to do elevator pitches
- focus on important not interesting problems
3. Scrutinize ideas
Write small business plans / value proposition, and when presenting or writing focus in this order:
- What Need / problem does the idea solve
- How that problem is solved today (Competition and Alternatives).
- What Benefits and Costs / Disadvantages your solution has
- Last spend time on the Approach / implementation.
4. Be customer focused
Understand your customer. Read The Innovator's Solution.
5. Iterate ideas
Read Serious Play if you really want to understand this - this book just touches the subject.
6. Align your team
Make sure all works towards the same goal. Read Good to Great.
7. Focus on profit, not turnover
Be profitable as soon as possible, that is create value as soon as possible, as that would steer the idea.
8. Think big
Don't try to build 1M-companies, but 1B-companies. I think this is a useful exercise, even if the numbers look big the point is - if you are thinking about products that would address 100k problems, lift the bar.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Summary: A Guidebook for Serious Innovation Practitioners
Date: 2008-01-17 -
Comment: This is the first book that is a comprehensive "how to" guide written for leaders that want to drive the innovation performance of their organizations. Curtis Carlson is president and CEO of SRI International, arguably a collection of the most productive innovators on the planet. If you read only one book on innovation, this is the one to read. If you are limited for time, buy this book and read Chapter 5: It's as Simple as NABC. NABC is an acronym for: What is the customer and market NEED? What is the specific APPROACH to satisfying that need? What are the BENEFITS from that approach considering costs? & Why are these benefits superior to the COMPETITION and/or alternatives? That chapter alone is worth twice the price of the book. We bought copies for everyone in the company. At Metrics Reporting, we are innovation practitioners. We practice the discipline of innovation. This is a guidebook for practitioners that are serious about creating extraordinary results.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Summary: Read the first half
Date: 2008-01-15 -
Comment: Someone who's part-way into a running a small business would benefit greatly from reading this book. particularly the first half. It's good motivational reading... because you feel as though you've learned something, and really you have. It teaches how to get from a good idea, to a successful innovation. It's not innovation unless it's successful and gets used. Such a big concept, yet it often gets missed. That and it's well written, and a very enjoyable read.
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