Its amazing that a diseases like Ebola can still be controlled by watching how it breaks the body down and countering it with electrolytes and other medicines. It is the system that needs caring and not the specific danger.
Loved the examples in the book showing the process of coming up with innovative ideas. Very accesible book with ideas from different industries.
You will learn lots of lessons and takeaways like this from many of the examples in the book.
Listen to the Owlet's story where they kept learning about not ignoring all the stakeholders. Once they figured out the different stakeholders and their roles, they creatively kept themselves floating till the right approvals were met by defeaturing their product meanwhile.
Terracycles Negative-cost Marketing.
How are innovatorss able to do this? They use ALIEN thinking. "These five patterns—Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation, and Navigation—lead to a fresh and flexible approach to problem-solving."
In the initial chapters, you learn about each pattern of thinking. Then you move onto recognizing all the patterns in one solution.
The strategies & tactics and tips & tricks for each of these patterns of thinking, should get you started with applying those techniques for your products and problems.

I received a digital electronic galley of this book in exchange for a fair review.
The authors use the mnemonic ALIEN (Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation, Navigation) to advocate an approach that businesses can use for creative thinking in innovation and problem solving. Five of the chapters expound on the particular category by explaining the topic, using business examples for emphasis and at the end of the chapter provide a summary and some exercises that readers can use to further understand the concept. Later chapter address how digital strategies can complement ALIEN thinking and how the 5 categories conceptually fit together.

Overall, the book is well-written, thematically well-arranged and the exercises are practical and thoughtful. Critically important (but not enough attention is paid to) is how multiple variables can stymie the implementation (or Navigation) of breakthrough thinking in organizations. Furthermore, the authors write, "ALIEN thinkers may need to fly under the radar while their innovations are in the early stages of development, recruit influential supporters, and position their offerings in ways that don't overtly threaten the status quo." Doesn't this stymie iconoclastic thinkers-- to have to navigate politics and culture which is the biggest reason why companies fail to adapt? I think the better solution is to recognize the organization you are in and if it doesn't reward this type of thinking then move to one that does or develop your entrepreneurial skills and try to partner with similarly committed individuals. There are enough people in organizations who are skilled in the art of politics. To think that an innovative individual should then be skillful in the use of political machinations to adopt something that would ultimately be beneficial to the company seems to me a waste of their talents. Paradoxically, the authors' examples of these types of situations further highlight this problem as most of the companies they write about have already internally embraced the idea but are now expending their energy toward regulators, external stakeholders, etc. There is a huge difference between a path breaking idea that is squashed internally and never gets accepted versus one that is accepted and has the whole organization on board to overcome externally-related challenges. The story the authors tell of Steven Sasson, who while at Kodak developed and understood the promise of a digital camera, almost makes it seem as if he was somehow culpable for Kodak refusing to embrace the technology because of not being a deft politician skilled at navigating alliances, upsetting prominent individuals or using company-appropriate language. He had the audacity to call his invention 'filmless photography,' which apparently in the Kodak culture was more destructive than a nuclear bomb. Instead, the blame in my opinion goes solely to Kodak leadership who missed this opportunity because of a calcific culture and should serve as an example of how this culture won't win in the era of disruptive innovation. Instead Kodak's leaders, and other autocratic cultures should be hoisted on their own petard to be made an example of how poor leadership sucks the soul out of its employees and ruins jobs.

There is also some dissonance about the use of technology in implementing this type of thinking. On one hand the authors write, "Overreliance on technology interferes with her awareness of her surroundings, her ability to feel, to make connections, to learn as she goes, and to adapt." Whereas later in the book the authors write (more correctly in my opinion), "...The most successful ALIEN thinkers today...understand the power of digital technologies to inspire, test, improve, and promote their ideas." I think the biggest trap companies can fall into is burying themselves analyzing big data and then creating a story based on this retrospectively collected data rather than talking to employees, customers, critics, etc. Even the type of sensors that collect bodily data at this point have not been scaled to where there is widespread adoption. Weight loss and exercise apps have not been successful in medical studies, which highlights what successful ideas are meant to do, which is change behavior. In order to do this there are multiple explanatory variables that encompass psychology, decision-making, motivation, etc. within complex adaptive systems that contribute to a true understanding of introducing a successful idea that solves a big problem. However, this book, as much as possible, gives a wide lens to at least be able to think about these problems in a quasi-disciplined way.

There are a number of books on innovation, and this one is pretty good and might be a good one to add to an innovation library. While a bit repetitive, it does provide a solid approach to creative thinking. It includes helpful stories and examples, as well as summaries of key points. This is well-written and very clear. Recommended.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

A good start but the examples seemed to go on and on. Not really leading anything. It felt like a lot of repeating the same thing over an over.