Creativity in Product Innovation [Paperback]

Jacob Goldenberg (Author), David Mazursky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 21, 2002

Creativity in Product Innovation describes a remarkable new technique for improving the creativity process in product design. Certain "regularities" in product development are identifiable, objectively verifiable and consistent for almost any kind of product. These regularities are described by the authors as Creativity Templates. This book describes the theory and implementation of these templates, showing how they can be used to enhance the creative process and thus enable people to be more productive and focused. Representing the culmination of years of research on the topic of creativity in marketing, the Creativity Templates approach has been recognized as a breakthrough in such journals as Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'The book would be valuable reading for any professional in any one aspect of a product development process. It offers a divergent view that will stimulate and challenge the reader to reflect on their own product development processes with fresh insight ... this is a worthwhile text.' Innovation

Book Description

Creativity in Product Innovation describes a remarkable new technique for improving creativity in product design. Certain regularities or templates in product development are identifiable and consistent for almost any kind of product. This book describes these templates, showing how they can be used to enhance the creative process. The Creativity Templates approach has been recognized as a breakthrough in such journals as Science, Journal of Marketing Research, and Management Science. It has been successfully implemented through workshops in international companies including Philips Consumer Electronics, Kodak, Coca-Cola and many others.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1st edition (January 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521002494
• ISBN-13: 978-0521002493
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #484,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on systematic creativity, and why it works, June 13, 2002

By 

John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Creativity in Product Innovation (Paperback)

This book does an excellent job of showing how to systematize the process of creating new product ideas. I would consider it a derivative of the TRIZ process started by a Russian engineer, Altshuller. In effect, this book summarizes up several of the techniques proposed by Altshuller, and later by others. The authors present these systematic techniques in a very understandable format... something that Altshuller and others have often failed to do.

The authors also demonstrate that you can get better results by looking inward to the product itself, rather than listening outward to the customer ("the voice of the customer"). The Sony Walkman is probably the best example of that. I was skeptical of this sweeping generalization, but the authors provide lots of research to back up their statements.

The book thus presents 4 methods (called "Templates") to generate ideas for an existing product. Let me give you an example by using an illustration from the book using perhaps the simplest method: the Displacement Template. Here you first diagram all the components of a chair (for example). It is composed of the Back, the Seat, the Legs, and Person sitting on it. You then remove one of the important components (the Legs). You are now faced with a product that just has the Back and the Seat. You now try to derive a marketable product from this idea. This is called "solution spotting", when you identify the form of the product first, and then search for a need for this product. In this example, the new product without legs, could be sold as a beach chair.

Although this simplistic example may seem trivial it illustrates the concept that the product came from WITHIN the product itself and not from the market. It also can be seen to be systematic... in that you identify the components of the existing product and then you systematically drop important components one by one. In comparision, listening to the market would take you perhaps to corporate customers who would not be thinking of lounge chairs for the beach.

But more importantly, this book attacks the whole concept of brainstorming sessions. They call this "random" generation of ideas. This has what we have largely been doing for thousands of years. They propose, and then demonstrate with their research results, that a systematic approach (using their Templates) produces ideas that have a higher probability of success.

The authors offer a GREAT bibiliography for each chapter. That alone will keep me busy for at least 2 months. The book is easy to read, but it tends to be a little too "researchy" in spots.

The book presents a systematic method to create ideas for advertisements. I couldn't see where their methodology did better than mimicry of good ads. However, they did offer a way to analyze the components of good ads. One other criticism in this section on ads... the people that rated the ads were largely advertising professionals... and not the marketplace itself. Therefore, the ads tended to be trivial... at least compared to the results you could get using the techniques for products.

I am convinced that this systematic method is very good for developing new products. I have tried it on services and it did trigger some great ideas, although I found services to be more difficult to analyze.

Its a deep book for people serious about inventing things. Its not a rah-rah book that presents motivational messages.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. The authors have contributed largely to this field of inventiveness.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging Traditional Thinking, February 28, 2002

By 

Craig Frank - CEO, Tudog Consulting (Pembroke Park, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creativity in Product Innovation (Paperback)

Creativity in Product Development is a welcome and necessary addition to the body of literature providing tactics, strategies and methods for marketing and product development professionals. This book is a must buy for any professional or student of business who needs or wants to stay on the cutting edge of business thought and processes. Simple stated, Goldenberg and Mazursky, through their presentation, evaluation and paradigms of Systematic Innovative Thinking, shake up the traditional approaches to product development and marketing and challenge us to look at ourselves and our world from an entirely new perspective.

As our society has become more consumer driven, advertisers, marketing professionals, and leading manufacturers have presented an abundance of new products. Most of these products are doomed for failure as they fail to offer any genuine innovation, meet any real consumer need, or appear to be me-too products with a few additional bells and whistles. Add to this the ever growing cynicism of today's consumers, as marketers try ever trick in the book to gain even a nano-second of consumer attention, and our need for new methodologies becomes abundantly clear.

Thankfully, here's a book that instead of tricks, pop wisdom and pep talks, provides us with a systematic methodology for the development of new products. Moreover, it provides us with an entirely new way of approaching product development - through the product itself. Whereas up until now we have been focused on the perceived needs of the consumer, and the feedback consumers give, we have been limiting our imaginations to adding lemon to Diet Coke and Frosting our Cheerios.

Jacob Goldenberg and David Mazursky challenge us to view the process from a new perspective, to look at the core product and explore - through their systematic paradigms - the possibilities, leading us to product options that simply would not have occurred to us had we engaged in the standard product innovation routines of brainstorming and products add-ons. The Goldenberg and Mazursky system opens new combinations of variables that allow for some highly practical new product ideas. The process of discovery, aside from being extremely productive, also becomes dynamic, drawing in the creativity and business instincts of those involved.

The result is a higher level of creativity. With good business practice, this can be translated to more appealing products and greater profits. Companies should rejoice at an engaging new system for product development. Marketing professionals should be excited about the new products with real innovations that they will be able to start selling without having to create smoke screens. Consumers should be thrilled at the new products that will soon be offered.

Innovation is the engine that drives progress. We are fortunate to be living during the time of the greatest surge in innovation in human history. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, along come Goldenberg and Mazursky and show us how we can do it even better. Creativity in Product Development outlines the innovation science of the next 100 years. Personally, I can't wait to see what it yields.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative Creativity, December 24, 2002

By 

MAK (Los Angeles, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creativity in Product Innovation (Paperback)

This book was wonderful....I really didn't expect much given one reviewer who said the book was "dry" but the book greatly exceeded my expectations and offered me a revolutionary way to think and to run my life. I found the book to be OVERFLOWING with insites which not only make sense but can be easily applied in business. In fact, I have already applied them! So in sum the book has already had an impact on my life.... READ IT AND USE IT.