IdeaWise: How to Transform Your Ideas [Hardcover]

Steve Rivkin (Author), Fraser Seitel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471129569 | ISBN-13: 978-0471129561 | Publication Date: March 1, 2002 | Edition: 1st

An easy-to-understand and easy-to-implement method for creating new ideas and new products
This book blows the lid off the so-called "idea gurus" by demystifying the creation of great new innovations. It offers readers a way to look at their company's existing products and services in order to transform them into new ideas. Well-known and respected authors Steve Rivkin and Fraser Seitel take readers into the Idea-Scape, a place where innovation is born from existing ideas transformed and manipulated in inventive ways to produce new products and business solutions. Examples of methods outlined include: What can you combine with an existing idea? What can you adapt? How can you put a product to other uses? What can you eliminate? . . . and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...this book is highly entertaining and readable...excellent read-fun and informative...well worth reading and may stimulate a good deal of thought..." (The Marketing Reviewer, Winter 2002)

From the Inside Flap

Innovation is a critical factor in business success today. However, companies can often find themselves stuck when trying to come up with a truly "new" idea. What they don't realize-and what this book reveals-is that it's not necessary to reinvent the wheel or hire a high-priced consultant to be truly innovative. Instead, you need to learn that the most creative and dynamic ideas are already there, just waiting for you to adapt them to your needs. It's called becoming IdeaWise.

Steve Rivkin and Fraser Seitel demystify the creation of great new innovations in IdeaWise, showing you how to foster fresh thinking that solves problems and propels business. They demonstrate how to borrow an existing idea and manipulate it in inventive ways to produce new products and business solutions. Inside, you'll find easy-to-understand methods that prove that a subtle twist on an idea can make a huge impact on business, including:
* What can you combine with an existing idea? (Band-Aids are now available with antibiotic ointment already on the pad.)
* What can you magnify or minimize? (McDonald's and Pizza Hut are shrinking their outlets to fit inside airport terminals.)
* What can you eliminate? (Saturn did away with pushy salespeople to address customers' fears of the car-buying process.)
* What can you reverse? (Lego did an about-face on an ill-advised diversification and returned to its core business.)
* What can you bring back? (Commerce Bank is bringing back the old values of long hours and personal service in consumer and small business banking.)

The authors reveal how anyone can be creative and transform new ideas through logic, common sense, and practicality. You'll discover what you should beware of in the "Idea Industry," consultant speak, and formulaic solutions. And you'll explore the three major process steps that will make you IdeaWise:
* How to work most effectively by yourself on new ideas
* How to work most effectively on new ideas in a group setting
* How to begin evaluating your ideas

Converting innovative ideas into organizational action takes courage, boldness, and no small amount of passion. With IdeaWise, you'll conquer any fears and doubts and bring to life the forward-thinking innovations that will inspire and invigorate your company.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471129569
• ISBN-13: 978-0471129561
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,663,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideas can be creatively recycled, May 6, 2002

By 

Garrett E. Bergman (Narberth, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: IdeaWise: How to Transform Your Ideas (Hardcover)

Steve Rivkin and Fraser Seitel have written a book that gives you permission to be "creative" by "copying" someone else's ideas. They demonstrate that what may be "new!" and "innovative" in one field can be a tried and true, accepted principle or application in another field. They point out, with great examples drawn from a variety of industries, how "revolutionary" ideas have been, and continue to be, actually "borrowed" from unrelated areas. They demonstrate with numerous examples how the success of the adapted application can surpass the success of the original application. This is not a new concept in some fields; that the synthesis of ideas or perspectives from two different disciplines can lead to some higher concept or value in a third may be well known and taken for granted in some fields, but never applied in so practical and enjoyable a manner as in this book. In a sense, they have "borrowed" and applied dialectics to marketing.

Written in a very practical, irreverent and humorous style, Rivkin and Seitel provide the reader with very practical advice about how to generate more and better ideas by increasing your awareness of the world around you. The actually provide step-by-step guidance on things that will work and specific principles that have to be followed to be successful. They led me to a different way of thinking about things, and for the first time in my 50-some years I am actually carrying around a notepad on which to jot down observations that will at some time find their way into my idea-making. I have read many of Rivkin's earlier contributions, and those authored by Trout and Ries, but this is the best-developed and most useful how-to book with which Rivkin has been associated so far. And they picked "Ideas", the topic on which business and cultural growth is rooted. Who can't use this help?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Instantly Useful, November 27, 2002

By 

"john48439" (Minnetonka, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: IdeaWise: How to Transform Your Ideas (Hardcover)

Messrs. Rivkin and Seitel serve up a veritable feast of practical ways to stimulate ideas. A central theme is the importance of borrowing -- and transforming -- existing ideas. Theirs is a sort of modern updating of Horace's definition of creativity as being "A new blend of familiar ingredients." Nice company to keep, guys.

5.0 out of 5 stars One of those business essentials, August 2, 2002

By 

Michael E. Kubin (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: IdeaWise: How to Transform Your Ideas (Hardcover)

IdeaWise combines business wisdom with fast-moving humor. I found myself highlighting something on just about every page, and having a chuckle or two along the way. This book is very cashew-like: each little nugget is tasty, and you don't want to stop eating them.