Innovate or Die: A Personal Perspective on the Art of Innovation

by Jack V. Matson

Book Overview

Starting up a business involves creatively coming up with many ideas, sorting out the most promising ones, testing prototypes, and launching the enterprise. The process involves an incredible number... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0965444902
• ISBN13: 9780965444903
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Paradigm Press (Monroe, WI)
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Failure, a Learning Experience

A wonderful book! Time to realize the positive side of failure--its among the best ways to learn. Rather than bottling up the bile of failure, distill it and learn from it. And, with that you can accelerate personal and professional growth. Leif Skoogfors Lansdale, PA

An enhancement of 'The Art of Innovation: Using Intelligent Fast Failure' by the same author!

In reality, this is an enhancement of 'The Art of Innovation: Using Intelligent Fast failure' by the same author. The latter was originally published in 1991 by The Penn State University (The Leonard Center for Innovation & Enhancement of Engineering Education). I had read it enthusiastically (I got it directly from the author) during the early 90's when I felt, as a mechanical engineer by training, I could relate readily to the author's teaching philosophy. I also felt that the author's unique concept of experimenting with creativity would empower me to go forward & experiment with other aspects of my life - research, consultany, training, coaching & personal hobbies. I then moved on, with further inpirations from other authors/books, to establish a strategy consultancy business, run a newsletter as well as operate a small retail outlet in early 1992. To this day, I still think that this is an excellent book about creativity & innovation in action. It is based on the author's personal experiences in exploring creativity & innovation with some six hundred students who took his 'Failure 101' course at the university. His premise in the book is this: "No issue is more important to the engineer, or entrepreneur, than intelligent failure." He has taught students to unlearn years of practising risk aversion, stressing the connection between creativity & risk. He has encouraged them to realise that failure is essential in developing design skills & judgement. I strongly recommend reading this book if you are serious about wanting to learn how to manage failure & to develop an appetite for risk in your life & /or your work.

Failure is essential to innovation

Before I read Jack Matson's book, I felt that innovation was a term very foreign to me and something that I could never really do, perhaps because it was too risky. He does a wonderful job breaking it down so that anyone can understand what it means to innovate and how to utilize failure to get ahead. I now realize that innovation is something that I use in my life without even thinking about it. He introduced many concepts to enhance my innovation techniques and now that I have followed his advice, I found that I accomplish more. So far I have passed this book onto many of my friends and they, in turn, have passed it along to others, including CEOs of companies. Make the time to read this book, it will change your perspective on everything!