Breakthrough: Stories and Strategies of Radical Innovation [Hardcover]

Mark J. Stefik (Author), Barbara Stefik (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 6, 2004

Since the late 1990s, technology markets have declined dramatically. Responding to the changing business climate, companies use strategies of open innovation: acquiring technologies from outside, marketing their technologies to other companies, and outsourcing manufacturing. But open innovation is not enough; it is mainly a way to run a business to its endgame. By itself, open innovation results in razor-thin profits from products that compete as commodities. Businesses also need a path to renewal. No one ever achieved a breakthrough with open innovation.Our capacity for creating breakthroughs depends on a combination of science, imagination, and business; the next great waves of innovation will come from organizations that get this combination right. During periods of rapid economic growth, companies and investors focus on the short term and forget where breakthroughs come from. Without appropriate engagement and reinvestment, the innovation ecology breaks down. Today, universities, technology companies, government funding agencies, venture capitalists, and corporate research laboratories need to foster the conditions in which breakthroughs arise.In Breakthrough, Mark and Barbara Stefik show us how innovation works. Drawing on stories from repeat inventors and managers of technology, they uncover the best practices for inventing the future. This book is for readers who want to know how inventors do their work, how people become inventors, and how businesses can create powerful cultures of innovation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A surprisingly comprehensive survey and synthesis of innovation dynamics, and a book both useful and usable."--Michael Schrage, MIT Media Lab, author of *Serious Play*

"A rare balance between theoretical insights and an insider's view of the complex world of invention and discovery." Australian Financial Review

A surprisingly comprehensive survey and synthesis of innovation dynamics, and a book both useful and usable." Michael Schrage, MIT Media Lab, author of Serious Play

From the Inside Flap

"The Stefiks focus on one of the most important sectors of innovations, those originating with breakthrough ideas. They deftly examine the kinds of observers that inventors must be -- how they think and understand -- to find a breakthrough idea and follow it through to a widely used technology. Inventor interviews, which liberally lace this librum, richly reward the reader."
--Peter J. Denning, past president, ACM, and editor of *The Invisible Future*

"Breakthrough innovations are bridges to the future, and this book helps point the way. Drawing on deep and varied experience from PARC, the Stefiks highlight the secrets -- and the challenges -- of creating new product breakthroughs."
--Tom Kelley, General Manager, IDEO, author of *The Art of Innovation*

"A surprisingly comprehensive survey and synthesis of innovation dynamics, and a book both useful and usable."
--Michael Schrage, MIT Media Lab, author of *Serious Play*

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (August 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262195143
• ISBN-13: 978-0262195140
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,181,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Packed with Knowledge!, March 24, 2005

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breakthrough: Stories and Strategies of Radical Innovation (Hardcover)

Mark and Barbara Stefik's guide to innovation is based on their belief that the new century demands that business foster inventive strategies. The authors tell inventors, entrepreneurs and managers what they can and must do to achieve breakthrough innovations. They explain the basis for innovation, the context of invention and what breakthroughs mean in terms of business strategy for the twenty-first century. The authors based their research on interviews with inventors and managers, including many from the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Their book is thorough, clearly written and packed with anecdotes, although at times it suffers from erratic organization. We find that the authors do a very good job of introducing the elements of innovation to a general business readership.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars looking for breakthroughs, March 1, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breakthrough: Stories and Strategies of Radical Innovation (Hardcover)

As an inventor, I found this book useful. The authors explore the theme of radical innovation. Of the creating of breakthrough inventions that can in turn create new markets and experiences. The book cites many examples. Perhaps most notably that of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). As is well known to many in technology, PARC developed the seminal concepts of a mouse, icons and window based user interface. Though sadly Xerox benefitted not a whit from this.

A constant question in the book is how to discover those breakthroughs. Or, restated, how to devise an environment that can nuture such events and the people that bring them about. The authors assert that what they term "open innovation" can never lead to breakthroughs. However, truly original creativity is such a fragile and intangible thing that the book doesn't really offer a deterministic approach to finding and applying it. But perhaps no book can.