Lightning In A Bottle, by David Minter and Michael Reid, is worth getting just for chapter 5 which clearly explains, "Why 9 Out of 10 New Products Fail".
David Minter and Michael Reid have worked for over 25 years in the innovation arena, particularly with Blockbuster Video, Dole and Einstein Bagels and run their own innovation company.
Their book is an easy read and explains in detail exactly how companies can innovate new products and services without the trauma of a woolly creative process.
The only slight niggle I discovered as I read the book was they sometimes repeated word for word a sentence written in a prior chapter. Get over that and there are some true gold nuggets in this book.
Lightning In A Bottle demolishes many companies central plank of belief in any or all of the following ways of finding new ideas:
-- Focus groups
-- Brainstorming
-- Ivory tower R&D or Gee Whiz
-- Rip Off
-- Incoming
Failures Of Focus Groups
Minter and Reid discuss why focus groups return the wrong results or results
you want them to return. Their full and logical explanation hits between the eyes because it's so obvious. Almost instantly understand dawns as to why the groups are bound to fail. So unless you're lucky putting out a new product based on the focus groups feedback is destined to fail.
Badly Let Down By Brainstorming
Brainstorming is given short shrift too as it is compared to giving a group of scientists in different disciplines random labelled chemicals and instruments and asking them to come up with lots and lots of compounds. Rhetorically they ask, "Does this sound like a way to cure polio or develop the next breakthrough in interstellar space exploration?"
Other Ways To Fail At Innovation
Gee Whiz, Incoming and Rip Off approaches are similarly examined and found wanting.
Maybe you think Quantitative Research and Market Segmentation are important? Minter and Reid suggest that whilst these are good tools they're inevitably used wrongly for innovation.
10 Points Why New Ideas Fail
To help understand why new ideas fail the book lists and consider 10 points that aren’t usually addressed during the idea creation approach.
They give excellent examples of why businessmen like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch are creative geniuses who innovated and kept true to the vision they believed in when nobody else did.
The 7 Step Idea Engineering Method
So having effectively demolished the "normal approach" to generating new products or services the book puts forward the authors own 7 Step Idea Engineering approach.
I should probably declare that this book fits right in with my own thoughts on focus groups and the way innovation is usually handled. And the interesting thing about it is the examples they give and the logical way they construct a better way to innovate.
Believe me by the end of this book I was hooked. And the most interesting thing I found from their book was that they use one on one interviews rather than focus groups to seek feedback.
I'd not realised before but it suddenly hit me. I'd started to use one-on-one interviews to create new processes and systems in companies because I found that group dynamics meant a process would be skewed according to the most vocal in the group. And I found that they worked much more accurately than previous methods.
Is The Book Worth Reading?
Any market researcher or business owner needs to read, understand and use Idea Engineering because Minter and Reid have produced a short book that has the potential to change their whole world, for the better.
Review Lightning In A Bottle How To Develop Saleable Products - To learn more about this author, visit Jim Symcox's Website.
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