Customer Reviews

The Houdini Solution: Put Creativity and Innovation to work by thinking inside the box

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What a simple, elegant concept - thinking inside the box - the precept shattering perspective behind The Houdini Solution. Not only is it brilliant, it's damn true. The best ideas often do happen in the box, and, with all the realities beyond our control, if you can't succeed there, well, good luck.

As a creative thinking coach, weekly I work in different industries helping people find fresh ideas. I have yet to encounter an area in business - hell, any area of human endeavor - that doesn't have to deal with a box, be it the boss' preconceptions, the industry's regulations, the budget, the deadline, whatever. Ernie Schenck points out, in story after story, illustration after illustration, some very big ideas that emerged not only in spite of the box, but frequently because of it. I won't steal the thunder here. Read the book. The only major flaw most readers might find between these pages is that it takes away almost all your excuses for not having great ideas.

This is simply a great, revealing read. I probably own every "here's how to do superior advertising work" book ever published, and have even read one or two. But Schenck has finally given up art directors' and copywriters' greatest secret: we WANT to be boxed in. Limitations lead to intense focus and creative, laser-like communications. Who knew? (well, some of us did, but now even clients do.)

Gee, thanks Ernie.

It's one thing to come up with a provocative insight. It's quite another to make a case for it so airtight Houdini himself would have a hard time wriggling out of it. But that's what Mr. Schenck does here. His core premise flies in the face of conventional wisdom: that rather than trying to "think outside the box", one is far more likely to arrive at genuinely creative, innovative solutions by making the most of what's "inside the box." In other words, all those things that are normally considered to be impediments to the process--short deadlines, minuscule budgets, recalcitrant clients and tight strategies--can actually be inspirational providing they are looked at in the right way, a point he drives home again and again with instructive examples and amusing anecdotes. All of which may come as a rude awakening to the many corporations and advertising agencies that subscribe to this "out of the box" notion. (And employ legions to consultants to steer them in the direction of this mythical destination.) But if it motivates a few of them to get out of this "box" trap, they'll have the inside track to more creative, innovative ideas.

There's an old bit of wisdom in the ad field: When everyone else is shouting, whisper; when everyone else is whispering, shout.

This book title is calculatingly clever and attention-getting (leading to sales) because it uses the tactic of taking the opposite view. The author rightly noticed a convention known as "thinking outside the box."

He took the opposite view, and sold books. This is the lesson.

If you are seriously into problem solving and creativity, this is not a very good book. The Houdini Solution is based on the presumption that the conditions (box) of a problem can serve as a recipe for solving it. Hence the thinking inside the box subtitle.

Defining your problem and knowing its boundaries and conditions - analyzing - is a very important step in gaining insight in any creative undertaking. But it will never (really never ever)leave you with a formula for solving the problem. Even the tightest conditions leave an infinity of solutions to any problem.

The Houdini Solution chooses to pretend the hardest part in problem solving - generating an idea - does not exist as part of creativity.

It is a shame because the premise "Put Creativity and Innovation to work..." is very interesting, since channeling creativity and innovation towards a well defined goal can be true challenge for many companies.

And then there's the Inside the Box thinking. Every time the book references an Inside the Box example, it really is referring to good old oldfashioned Out of the Box thinking.

What is nice about the book though, is that is presents some rather interesting cases, which, unfortunately, are misinterpreted often as an ingenious Inside-the-Box alternative for addressing creativity as a mean to problem solving.

What an eye opener. How very clever Houdini was in marketing himself... Some of his practices were a little off color and I would not put to use, but it gave me insights as to how to come in the "back door" and approach a concept to an audience. I am growing more confident that I will soon be able to attract and hold the interest of the market I am trying to appeal to. I simply desire to hold the hearts of women in crisis long enough so they will catch on to what it is truly like to be free in the Lord. I know God works in people's situations much of the time, but I got good insight on how I could improve my approach to women wanting a better life. This audio book was recommended to me and I am very glad I purchased it. Peace !

Turning "think outside the box" maxims inside-out with a book about how to "get back in the box" was a great idea the first time I read it--in Douglas Rushkoff's 2005 book GET BACK IN THE BOX. Rushkoff's call for a return to core competencies is a breezy account of self-sabotaging business practices and the philosophical antidotes to them. Elegant in its simplicity but vast in its wisdom, I'd feel comfortable handing Rushkoff's book to a veteran Fortune 500 CEO or a 16-year-old paperboy.

I so enjoyed the subject, I thought HOUDINI SOLUTION might offer similar insights, but Ernie Schenck is no Doug Rushkoff. Schenck's clumsy metaphor makes a far less cogent argument to get back in the box. HOUDINI SOLUTION argues for us to surrender to the box in order to figure out how to get out of it. But where Rushkoff is holistic, Schenck is obsessed with stretching his Houdini references.

It's almost like Schenck took a few good ideas from Rushkoff and liberally sprinkled them with the magical "don't be it, think it" asininity of THE SECRET, rather than identifying systemic problems in the way our businesses and lives work.

I'm not saying that Schenck copped his book from Rushkoff because if he had, he would have written a better book. If you're really interested in this subject, read GET BACK IN THE BOX instead. Find it here:

Get Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business

Extremely confined into toughts, solutions, events and presentations that happens only inside of advertising agencies. Unpractical for an holistic approach to business you might search these days.

Contrary to ad-world myth, good advertising is not created by gods who inhabit an unachievable pantheon of genius. This book affirms that small staffs, limited dollars, and constraints of the sort that all creative people live with can be overcome, and may also drive better thinking. The Houdini Solution puts creative excellence in the hands of mortals. Bar the doors, the secret is out.

As a writer by trade, I've always appreciated the haiku. Without its strict adherence to structure, this form of poetry would lose its inherent beauty. The Houdini Solution is a refreshing take on creativity. It's a great reminder that the box is not a limitation, but a fascinating place to work.