Cover image for Juice : the creative fuel that drives world-class inventors
Title:
Juice : the creative fuel that drives world-class inventors
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ISBN:
9781591392880

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30000010080637 HD53 S33 2004 Open Access Book Advance Management
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30000010080636 HD53 S33 2004 Open Access Book Advance Management
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30000010151454 HD53 S33 2004 Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

Building value in our global economy increasingly demands creating new opportunities and solving new problems. In a nutshell, that's what inventors do. Just as software has driven growth and opened new markets over the past generation, invention is poised to become the X-factor for the future. With a foreword by former Microsoft research chief Nathan Myhrvold, this groundbreaking book takes us inside the laboratories and inside the minds of some of today's leading inventors to demystify thecritical process by which they imagine and create.

Evan I. Schwartz argues that invention has remained steeped in myth and misunderstanding. We tend to view invention as a byproduct of accidental discovery or supernatural genius rather than what it truly is: a focused quest fueled by a special creativity latent in each of us. Juice juxtaposes the stories of classic inventors with a new breed of innovators, such as hypersonic sound inventor Woody Norris, genomics pioneer Lee Hood, mechanical whiz Dean Kamen, and business systems inventor Jay Walker. Schwartz reveals the brilliant strategies--including pinpointing problems, crossing knowledge boundaries, visualizing results, applying analogies, and embracing failure--that today's inventors use to journey beyond imagination and bring back ideas that can change the world.


Author Notes

Evan I. Schwartz is a contributing writer for MIT's Technology Review and a former editor at BusinessWeek


Reviews 1

Publisher's Weekly Review

The inventor?s creative drive is usually regarded as an inimitable fluke found only in geniuses, but what if it were a mindset anyone could cultivate and exploit? Schwartz (The Last Lone Inventor) believes that it is, and lists a series of principles illustrated by the work of various inventors, from historical figures like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison to modern examples like Dean Kamen, the developer of the Segway. Though these tales are amiable and straightforward, the lessons he draws from them are overwhelmingly generic, along the lines of spotting opportunities others have overlooked and taking advantage of happy accidents. Meanwhile, stories about researchers turning algae into an alternative fuel source or creating speakerless sound systems that use ultrasonic waves for pinpoint audiocasting make invention look like something that occurs under unique circumstances or requires a high degree of specialized knowledge. Readers who are strictly interested in true tales of science, however, may be attracted by the diversity of Schwartz?s role models. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


Table of Contents

Nathan P. Myhrvold
Forewordp. ix
Prologue: What Drives Invention?p. 1
1. Creating Possibilitiesp. 11
2. Pinpointing Problemsp. 29
3. Recognizing Patternsp. 49
4. Channeling Chancep. 63
5. Transcending Boundariesp. 81
6. Detecting Barriersp. 93
7. Applying Analogiesp. 111
8. Visualizing Resultsp. 125
9. Embracing Failurep. 143
10. Multiplying Insightsp. 163
11. Thinking Systematicallyp. 183
Epilogue: Scaling Up and Outp. 203
Notesp. 213
Acknowledgmentsp. 223
Indexp. 227
About the Authorp. 237