After 18 months or so of doing these business book summary reviews, the question I’m most frequently asked is whether or not I actually read the books. That is something I haven’t been asked since 6th grade, when Ms. Dowling accused me of fudging a book report. Not only do I read these books, my reading comprehension is so bad – no better than it was in elementary school – that I probably read each book the equivalent of two times! Ever have to read a paragraph multiple times to make sure you got the point? If so, we have that in common. For what it’s worth, the formula for reading a book a month is about 15 pages a day, and for me that only happens first thing in the morning of a workday – no nights, no weekends, no holidays. If you work about 20 days a month and read 15 pages each of those days, you can chew through an average-sized business book no problem. I hope that’s an idea worth knowing, and that you’ll pick up this month’s selection, The Idea Hunter by Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer. As with last month’s book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, this one will help you capitalize on healthy behaviors and will also help shape your “gig,” which they term your personal brand and professional identity.
The authors want you to know that ideas abound in the world and that many can be had – or repurposed – for relatively little or even no cost. A guy named Phil Schiller and his team at Apple had hit a wall when working through the design phase of the user interface on their first MP3 player. It wasn’t until Schiller reflected back on his time with HP and the release of that company’s Workstation that it dawned on him: they could use a scroll wheel. “And this went on to be a pronounced feature of the first iPod,” Boynton and Fischer write. “The exact cost of such a discovery? Zero. That’s the leveraging power of ideas.” (Insert your own clever “don’t reinvent the scroll wheel” comment here.) Later in the book, they reveal how Twitter came into existence out of co-founder Jack Dorsey’s original software platform, which was used to track bicycles, trucks, taxis, etc. One man’s fascination with the inner-workings of city transportation lead to the invention of… well, knowing instantaneously what’s on people’s minds. You may not be convinced that’s great progress, but it’s pretty neat learning how the story came to pass, with one cool idea leading to another, no?
And if you’re already full of news about Apple and Twitter, it never hurts to learn a bit more about Pixar, right? The authors of The Idea Hunter share insights into how the animation giant welcomes ideas “from misfits and malcontents.” Pixar taps its disgruntled employees and frustrated artists – calling the lot of them black sheep – knowing that their “weird, wild, or just plain different ideas aren’t being given an opportunity to grow.” Take a look at your company’s culture regarding exit interviews and hearing from those on the fringe. Or just redesign your work space, putting the restrooms at the heart of the operation. The one place everyone goes throughout the day is the bathroom, and Pixar figured that centralizing the restrooms was one way to force interaction among its various employees. Don’t have the budget to completely overhaul your building’s plumbing system but still want the troops to mingle? You could just pull the fire alarm a few times a day!