Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Creativity [Hardcover]

Bernd H. Schmitt (Author), Laura Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2001

Two marketing and communications experts present a cutting-edge model for managing group creativity, expanding on the ideas introduced in Bernd Schmitt's revolutionary Experiential Marketing. Bernd Schmitt, a leader in experiential thinking, introduced the concept of the 'experience organisation' a business that thrives on innovation, buzzes with ideas, rejects bureaucacy, questions convention and allows the spirit of its employees to soar. Now he teams up with Laura Brown to show not only that these companies exist, but how any company can become one. Build Your Own Garage is at the forefront of the new field of study focused on the dynamics of workplaces that feature breakthrough ideas and new initiatives. Using the metaphor of the garage to represent these most successful busineses of the new economy, the authors draft blueprints that bring together the on-line experience, branding, communications, cultural perspective and people to foster maximum corporate creativity. Using examples drawn from real life, Schmitt and Brown demonstrate everything from how the physical environment and size of an organisation can substantially improve the quality and flow of ideas, to the relative effectiveness of various e-commerce models.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ever since Hewlett-Packard emerged from one in 1939, a "garage" has come to symbolize the no-holds-barred mentality that fosters the kind of creativity that drove this company--and the dozens more it spawned--to heights theretofore unknown. Bernd Schmitt, a Columbia Business School professor who has written several well-received marketing books (Experiential Marketing, Marketing Aesthetics) takes this image to the next level in Build Your Own Garage by relaying strategies that readers can adapt to their own enterprises whether they are housed in a converted parking structure or not.

As one might suspect from a book that advocates the unorthodox, Schmitt chooses to deliver his ideas in an unconventional manner. Each chapter begins with an elaborate short story by Laura Brown that encapsulates its central concepts (such as a vampire tale based on Bram Stoker's Dracula that illustrates how "the strictures of traditional corporate culture are enough to suck the life energy out of anyone"). Also sprinkled throughout are photographs and images by graphic artist Gail Anderson, which simultaneously reinforce the book's themes (on topics including technology, branding and "customer experience management") and distance it from buttoned-down management tomes that espouse the very group-think Schmitt is trying to eliminate. Those seeking new ideas who are not turned off by unique presentations should find this intriguing. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

Instituting an in-house "garage" is essential for companies that want innovation to flourish. The authors use parables of hypothetical companies, followed by specific tools to show how to encourage inventiveness in employees. While the approach is fresh, the transitions from the anecdotes to the more technical advice are uneven, and jargon may intimidate some readers. This book will best serve those already familiar with "creativity" techniques.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (July 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743202600
• ISBN-13: 978-0743202602
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,446,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Clever stories but no handbook, December 30, 2001

By 

hatchmo (maplewood, nj United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Creativity (Hardcover)

The book benefits from amusing anecdotes but is very light on actual help for putting in place a workable framework for managing business innovation.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sparking Corporate Creativity, August 7, 2001

By 

Rita Belmont (Boston, MA

Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Creativity (Hardcover)

Having read Schmitt's books on marketing, I was very interested to see him branching out into the field of corporate creativity. "Build Your Own Garage" is a really interesting, quirky book that sparks the imagination and also offers practical, concrete tools that managers can use.

I believe that "Build Your Own Garage" is the first business book on creativity that really expresses the complexity of the creative process. Encouraging and managing creativity in a large organization is not a simple job. Schmitt and Brown approach the topic from different angles--analyzing the role of creativity in business organizations, detailing real-world examples of creative initiatives, and also offering creative "business parables" to show different facets of creativity in the workplace. (Look especially for the vampire story about "the Corporate Undead"!)

For all its quirkiness, "Build Your Own Garage" deals with corporate creativity in a down-to-earth way. This is not a giddy, dot-com, anything-goes approach to creativity. The book fully acknowledges the importance of business fundamentals and proposes a variety of realistic techniques to improve performance through creativity. Not surprisingly given Schmitt's background, the chapter on Branding is particularly strong.

"Build Your Own Garage" is a quick and enjoyable read that offers some useful insights into corporate creativity. I highly recommend it.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, August 7, 2001

By 

Anna (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Creativity (Hardcover)

I found this book very fun, and very practical (an unusual combination!). The authors show how to make even an established legacy business more creative and dynamic. The book is timely, and applicable to the real-world, „post-interntet-boom era ˆ managers still need to bolster their bottom line with innovation. I‚ve ordered copies for all my line managers.