Review Lightning In A Bottle How To Develop Saleable Products
Review Lightning In A Bottle How To Develop Saleable Products
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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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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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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