Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Lindsay (Author), Cheryl A. Perkins (Author), Mukund Karanjikar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 2009

This practical guide reveals the nine major “fatigue factors” that can block the path to innovation success, along with solutions to energize innovation. Original advances in innovation practice and new case studies are applied to guide inventors, entrepreneurs, companies, universities, and even policy makers in conquering innovation fatigue. Cost-effective solutions include guidance on intellectual assets, dealing with disruptive innovation, and driving innovation using the “Horn of Innovation” and “Circuit of Innovation” models. A surprising view of DaVinci as an engine of open innovation is presented. Throughout the book, a unique aspect is exploring the journey of innovators, including corporate employees and entrepreneurs, at the often-overlooked personal level using the metaphor of immigrants in a strange land to identify barriers and solutions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins, and Muknd Karanjikar have written a book that aspires to give innovators, and all others who have a stake in seeing good new ideas become reality, a road map to developing the practical intelligence needed to succeed or to facilitate the success of others. Those who are inventing the next wave of clever solutions will find this useful." (PsycCRITIQUES, January 20, 2010)

From the Inside Flap

Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success

Conquering Innovation Fatigue is for anyone seeking success through innovation. Business leaders, inventors, researchers, entrepreneurs, and civic leaders will benefit from its insights and practical solutions. It reveals the sometimes hidden barriers—nine major "innovation fatigue factors"—that can block the path to innovation success, and shows how to cope with or conquer them.

Conquering Innovation Fatigue takes a unique personal look at the challenges innovators face in their journey, invoking the metaphor of immigrants in a strange land facing barriers at multiple levels. By drawing upon original case studies and advances in innovation theory and practice—some presented here for the first time—the authors show how innovation can be energized to conquer fatigue and help innovators reach success.

You will learn how to:

• Recognize and overcome the nine major innovation fatigue factors across three key categories
• Make the right connections to bring innovation to the marketplace
• Avoid unintended innovation-killers
• Enhance the productivity of your personnel involved with innovation
• Exploit low-cost intellectual assets (not just patents) to better deal with disruptive innovation
• Turn the "innovation funnel" upside down to create more efficient, targeted innovation
• Tap multidisciplinary skills for innovation success

This important book explains that understanding and overcoming these barriers is vital not only to you, as an inventor, entrepreneur, or researcher, but also to business leaders, licensing professionals, IP professionals, corporations, and even leaders of nations!

Conquering Innovation Fatigue points the way to cost-effective, practical solutions to strengthen innovation and achieve personal or corporate success. There's no reason to let fatigue get in your way.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (July 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470460075
• ISBN-13: 978-0470460078
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,294,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, the REAL barriers to innovation are addressed!, June 29, 2009

By 

Walter Reade (Appleton, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success (Hardcover)

Conquering Innovation Fatigue is an important and much-needed contribution to the innovation literature. If you have any interest in innovation, this book is a must read.

The book recognizes that the struggle corporations are facing to provide real innovation is complex and goes far beyond a lack of good ideas. On the contrary, there are behavioral, organizational, and external challenges that are the real culprits for squelching innovation.

The book addresses 9 "fatigue factors," providing compelling case studies and practical advice on overcoming these barriers to innovation.

Conquering Innovation Fatigue also introduces a new paradigm for thinking about innovation . . . the "Horn of Innovation." I found it a well-thought-out and particularly intriguing metaphor for enhancing success with innovation.

As I read the book, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed at the task faced most major corporations to improve innovation. With so many potential barriers, where should one start? I would have appreciated if the book had contained some sort of assessment to help prioritize which of the 9 fatigue factors to tackle first. An easy thing to fix, and hopefully something that will appear on the book's website in the future.

Walter Reade, Ph.D.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars from the perspective of an inventor..., December 10, 2009

By 

Carol Blaney "Blaney Consulting" (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success (Hardcover)

I'm an inventor, and so I went straight to chapter 5, "Innovator Deficiencies" to see what the authors had to say of folks like me, those 'creative' types with messy hair and odd work hours (including late nights and weekends).

I completely agree that we 'innovators' have our dark side, which is our personal contribution to innovation fatigue, and which often comes across as blown up pride. Honestly, it's because we think our ideas are the greatest gift to the planet. This attitude is understandably shunned by all others, such as those we must sell our ideas to.

Me being made aware of this phenomenon was most liberating. It got me thinking. In fact, we innovators NEED that pride to invent something in the first place. That pride is our strength: to have that grand and lofty vision; to think we can make a difference and fix all the world's problems. And then to go about coming up with solutions.
But as Lindsay et. al. point out, we must BALANCE this pride with patience, humility, diligence.

The theme of balance is brought up again and again - for example, in Chapter 7, Breaking The Will To Share, the authors say, "One of the paradoxes of human life is that strength becomes weakness when it is not balanced or coupled with flexibility and openness to change and growth." This points to the general solution to all hindrances in life, and innovation in particular: For every strength there is a dark side (a weakness), and the key is bringing BALANCE to that strength. (This deep truth is a recurring theme in many ancient works as well, such as the I. Ching.)

I also appreciated the thorough attention given (in the second half of the book) to legal issues, including patents and government regulation issues, that can hinder innovation progress. A great collection of real examples were provided, leaving me with the equivalent of several lifetimes of careers in corporate management, patent law, and research & development - along with the wisdom gained thereof. Thank you Lindsay, Perkins, and Karanjikar for your contribution via this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Must Read" for inventors, December 12, 2009

By 

M. Roberts (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success (Hardcover)

I read Innovation Fatigue cover-to-cover in 1 sitting. My firm consults with a lot of inventors and entrepreneurs, and I've been recommending this book to each of them before they head too far down the road. The value proposition to inventors/entrepreneurs will become evident within the first couple fo chapters, but many larger corporations will benefit from the principles shared in this book as well. I've lost count with the number of companies that have a "Not Invented Here" culture that I've come in contact with. The NIH chapter alone is worth putting this book in your library.

2009 seems to be a year with very few "gotta have" breakthrough products that consumers are racing to claim to put under their trees this season. The stores are full of products and variations of products from previous year, with the only differentiation being price. Competing on price alone is a "race to the bottom" - only "innovation" will rescue corporate profits and increase top-line revenue, and "Innovation Fatigue" provides a roadmap of the routes to take, and detours to avoid, to be successful in the years to come.

Intellectual Property (IP) is the currency of the 21st century, and "innovation" is the key ingredient to any IP recipe. The authors of Innovation Fatigue clearly have a deep and profound understanding of this principle, and have pulled their insights together in a way that an individual inventor to a CEO of a Fortune 500 company can understand and put into action. Well done!