Customer Reviews

Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not the usual business book. I read this book on a three hour flight and took over four pages of notes and ideas on how to use the information in my business. It is by far my favorite of the 30 or so business books I have read. Its full of real stories about real busineses that failed to adapt or change and are now history. Let's face it,the world is changing and fast. Whole industries are disappearing. Facebook and Twitter are how the future will look. This book gets right down to the nuts and bolts surviving in this time of extreme change. While he does not get into how to use social media - he does something better. He teaches you how to be nimble, how to accept change and benefit from it. I am a professional portrait photographer and am witnessing the downsizing and possible extinction of my industry due to the proliferation of digital imaging. And that includes Facebook etc. Why buy a portrait when you really want a disk of images you can use anyway you want without paying anymore for it? This has turned our industry upside down, no one knows what to do. Dig in and resist or try to change? The industry leaders say dig in and resist.

After reading this book, I realize that to resist is futile. Anyone want to buy a typewriter or a set of encyclopedias? Reading the book shows how these companies failed to change even when they had a better chance of success than the newcomers. They dug in and put faith in their full bank accounts to get them through. Money was not enough to save them because they could not see how they needed to change to stay relevant. Instead embrace change, adapt and prosper! I truly feel that this book has made me think about my business in a way that will insure it's success. And that means changing how I think about my business and possibly changing the very nature of my business to stay relevent to my customer.

This book is written for the medium sized busineses, but is still valuable to the micro (me) or small business as well as the fortune 500 set.

'Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change',
by Jeremy Gutsche;

The strategy of exploiting chaos in order to seize opportunities in today's crazy times is obviously the rousing battle cry of innovation expert Jeremy Gutsche's new book, 'Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change'.

Backed by excellent credentials - host of TrendHunter TV, founder of [...], reportedlythe world's largest network of trend-spotting & cool-hunting pros, & now a widely-sought keynote speaker in North America - the author & his book are seemingly getting raving reviews.

In the first place, the book is quite unique in itself: visually engaging, with a fancy mix of large format, bold letters, coloured texts, oversized fonts, long & short sentences, wide spacing, & interspersed with wise quotes, jumpy lists & large portraits or photographs. All these features make reading a breeze!

In fact, I get the impression that the author may have been heavily influenced by the published thoughtwares of corporate skunk Tom Peters.

In reality, the author writes exactly like Tom Peters with his short, staccato bursts of energetic prescriptions, occasionally outrageous & yet written succinctly, with enchanting anecdotes & provocative examples from real-world events, in contrast to the staid academic texts of the time.

So much so that reading his book on my part reminds me of reading Tom Peters' 'Reinventing Work' series of small pocket-sized hard-backs, namely, 'The Brand You 50', 'The Project 50' & 'The Professional Service Firm 50' (combined, they also give a total of 150 ways to spark innovation, many of which are still relevant for today) during the late 90's.

I don't mean to throw a wet blanket on 'Exploting Chaos', but it is obvious to me that the many ideas in the book are not ground-breaking or revolutionary, but the author certainly has given them a new & refreshing spin with his so-called 'Crowd Sourced Insights'.

The latter is definitely a cool innovation on the part of the author, even though, with the luxury of today's Internet & Web 2.0 technologies, he has apparently extended the content analysis intelligence methodologies of futurist John Naisbitt, whose resultant book, 'Megatrends', rocked the world during the early 80's.

Instead of running probably a large team of media analysts to scan some 6,000 local & regional newspapers, trade journals, etc., within the United States during the 80's as in the case with John Naisbitt, TrendHunter intelligently uses a small project team of dedicated staff to sift & resift the constant flow of disparate spotted ideas (known as micro-trends) from some 28,000+ global trend hunters.

They are then posted on the TrendHunter website - just imagine they garnered 40 million page views in 2008 - & then, measured & filtered down to 360+ clusters of inspirations, which in turn are reconfigured into their popular Trend Reports, which are sought after by big boys, like The Economist & Financial Times.

In a nut shell, the book's selling point, besides promoting the company's lucrative Trend Reports, is how to ride & leverage on the current recession & emerging trends - through the adept use of some of the 150 ways offered in the book as fuel to spark innovation - to make a quantum leap.

The 'Exploiting Chaos' framework, comprising 'Culture of Revolution', 'Trend Hunting', 'Adaptive Innovation' & 'Infectious Messaging', is interesting too, but one needs to work diligently to get it to work.

The author's principal argument about the giants of business - Disney, CNN, HP, GE, Apple, Sun, to name just a few - having started & prospered during time of crises, certainly makes good reading. Encouraging, too.

There is only one point in the book that sort of annoys me: 'Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast', even though his checklist of parameters, 'Perspective', Experimental Failure', 'Customer Obsession' & 'Intentional Destruction', is reasonably valid.

I hold the view that strategy formulation or thinking strategically must always comes first & be sustained throughout, so that one can really do something about the culture.

On the whole, this book is still worth reading. To paraphrase the marketing maverick Seth Godin, "with the ideas from the book, you might catch an ideavirus!".

Nonetheless, I also like to recommend two books to go as companion reading:

Jim Carroll's 'What I Learned from Frogs in Texas: Saving Your Skin with Forward-Thinking Innovation', & 'Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast', which I had already reviewed on Amazon.

[Reviewed by Lee Say Keng, Knowledge Adventurer & Technology Explorer, Optimum Performance Technologies, September 2009]

good stuff- the format is such that it reads really quickly and doesnt give u a chance to put it down n lose interest...really makes u think.

This is a poorly written book that does not flow smoothly or contain any real substantive information. It looks as though the author took a collection of PowerPoint slides and transformed them into a book, that is poorly formatted. Had the search feature for this book been available at the time of purchase I would not have wasted money on it. So yes the author successfully exploited the reader and produced chaos to make a profit - so there is truth in advertising.

Unlike most books which offer ten or above ideas/fixes/means/strategies with a few pages of sheer words for each, this one is full of colorful pictures, interesting presentations and memorable stories. I found most of the ideas enlightening, yet I like the following most, including: "Create a gambling fund; Celebrate failure and you will liberate innovation; A culture that openly discusses imperfection is more likely to accept the failure that comes from acceptable risk; If you want to be remembered, invoke an emotional connection." Some reviewers complained that this book is disorganised. However, I see that as the inevitable consequence of the author's attempt to put that much good stuff and creativity in one single book. IMHO, its strengths far exceeds its weaknesses. Highly recommended!

p.s. Below please find some of my favorite passages for your reference.
Your focus should not be on protecting what you have, but rather on adapting to the next big thing. Pg29
You cannot predict the future, but you can predict scenarios and capitalize on disruption. Pg74-6
The role of a leader is not to suggest great ideas, but rather to create an atmosphere that fosters the ideas of others. Pg138
Fight as if you are right. Listen as if you are wrong. Pg143

Chaos scares people. Most of us like our routine and are not necessarily responsive to change. Gutsche addresses chaos and how it can actually be advantageous in Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change. His book has easy to understand points which are applicable for the CEO of a large company or a young adult dreaming about the future. Gutsche's liberal use of pictures and color make this an especially engaging and very easy-to-read book.

Failure especially seems to make people nervous, but Gutsche points out that failure is part of the learning process. Not just your own failure, but also the failures of others and how to avoid letting others failures impact your decision to take action.

How many of us see failure as a time to give up instead of moving forward? We get tired and worn out when things do not work and when others just are not living up to our expectations. Instead of letting discouragement set in, we need to keep plugging away and learn from what did not work. Failure can challenge us to improve and may help us redefine our goals.

Gutsche also warns us to be wary of our own strengths and to move behind mediocrity. Success after success can lead to complacency. If things always go our way the first time and work exactly as planned, why bother changing? Why do something new? Over time, we stop trying. Its too easy to be stagnant. That is why there is a place for failure.

In a nutshell, this book has very easy to apply points and practical examples of opportunities presented by chaos. Accept the inevitability of change and perhaps even being willing to embrace it. After reading his ideas, you may find new areas of interest or underserved niches and the motivation to run with it. It doesn't make it easy to suddenly embrace chaos, but does give a new perspective for people who struggle with what to do in a chaotic time.

The old saying states that a book can't be judged by its front cover, and that is what i did. Didn't paid much attention to the white and red lettered, black cove(i think they could do better in this book cover) , almost ripped off (and i blame amazon for this), and began to read among entertained colorful pages; definitely a book worth buying it "physical" and not the kindle edition. For sure many innovation starters might find useful this creative way of introducing new ways to do thing in times of change.

Just for the record, if for some reason another edition is going to come out, i truly believe the book cover illustration should be rethought.

A simple, engaging, and thoughtful read.

No one topic is covered in any real depth, but there is enough "meat" to open your mind to innovating for your business.

The title say 150 ways, and there are. I just wish they would have been explored in greater depth.

In Exploiting Chaos, Jeremy Gusche presents a methodology to institutionalize innovation. The methodology incorporates trend hunting, adaptive innovation, and infective messaging with underpinning culture of revolution. Numerous ideas jump out of the pages as you cruise through it.

The organization of the book allows readers to quickly scan cover to cover. It is a fast read for busy readers. The headlines on each page flow together to help you spark the next big idea.

The book is now one of my three printed references that I revisit whenever I smell stagnation in the air in the office. Revisiting the headlines in the book or visiting the Trend Hunter website gives more jolts to the brains than chugging down Monster.

And, yes, the Trend Hunter website is a site to visit regularly.

excellent book. Each page is a topic with great visuals. Fun, entertaining and informative.