Customer Reviews

Invent Business Opportunities No One Else Can Imagine

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

 

 

There's some excellent information about how to manage your teams, making sure that you and your people keep an eye on trends in the industry, and also good cautionary tales about not getting too wrapped up in your current success.

Unfortunately, history has proven parts of this book to be risky if taken literally. For instance, Enron is given as an example of a great, innovative company. I know that it's hard to have seen the failure coming, but still, it points out some risks in getting too caught up in broad ideas without properly estimating the real business opportunity. There's a lot of talk in the book about how to brainstorm markets and user needs, but very little about what to do with it. The implication is that you should just run off and go with an idea as soon as you imagine a trend; however, it's worth thinking about how you should transform your business and whether you could actually be profitable in your new venture. There are a lot of other great books in this space; I'd look at least at _Innovator's Solution_ to get more information about running your company without getting too stuck on your successes.

Over the years, I have come across only a handful of very good books touching on the subject of opportunity seeking and trend watching. I am very glad I found this one.

Just as the inside cover says: "Art Turock writes from first-hand experience. An authority in the field of 'breakthrough performance'...", this book did not disappoint me at all.

To me, looking from the angle of business development, there are four key exciting - and useful - ideas in the book, although the author has organised his book into nine chapters,:

- Latent Customer Needs Analysis;
- Fresh Eyes Perspectives;
- Power of Questions;
- Strategic Planning for Innovators;

His "Fresh Eyes Perspectives" are the most insightful I have ever come across. He offers seven very fresh approaches. Wow! Once you really understand - and apply - these approaches, no trends - or changes in the marketplace - can escape from your environmental scanning.

I also like his Turock 29: 29 questions to stir up your thinking cap. These are the field-tested questions that will help you to turn your observations into practical insights, from which you can then generate workable ideas, and eventually create your marketable opportunities. To paraphrase the author, questions are seeds for innovation.

His Past-Present-Future Matrix on page 42 is a gem for planners.

The Strategic Planning for Innovators is best summed up by what the author says : "Strategy is best seen as a 'work in progress'."

My only "complaint" about the book is that the author did not provide any annotated bibliography at the end of the book. However, within the pages, he mentioned casually a handful of excellent books e.g. Art of the Long View, Visionary Handbook, All the Right Moves, which I would strongly recommend readers to pursue them, if you have not read them.

If you have read - and have enjoyed - Edward de Bono's 'Opportunities', Peter Drucker's 'Innovation & Entrpreneurship' and Michel Robert's 'The Innovation Formula', you must read this book. This is also the most current. I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.

The author provides a long list of thoughts, questions, recommendations and ideas that you can use to generate new products and services for your business.

The book is easy to read and the recommendations are explained very well.

One reviewer said this book didn't match up to Drucker's book on Innovation. And, most would certainly agree. But using that criteria perhaps only 0.1 % of the business books would be comparable to Drucker, the sage of business management. Drucker's book might be a 8 or 9 on a 5 point scale (i.e. home run out of the ball park), while this one is one of the top 20 business books for the year it was published - what I would call a solid 5 star ranking.

Although he offers lots of great advice, I found his questions the most useful - particularly in the product innovation area. He covers many of the newer concepts on innovation by other authors, and integrates them into a nice package.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

This book is written by a business seminar leader and, not surprisingly, has the ring of an Anthony Robbins seminar.

Turock offers some good suggestions for looking at markets and customers in a way that may bring out opportunities for innovation in your business. He also provides a strategic planning process based on causing revolutionary innovation - as opposed to incremental change of the status quo.

My criticism of Turock is that he makes vague and often trite generalizations that trivialize the difficult process of developing and implementing effective innovations - as though he had never managed a company himself (which I do not think he has).

The book is a quick read and probably worthwhile because it just might prompt that one innovative thought that turns out to be a haymaker.

I recommend Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Practice and Principles by Peter F. Drucker for a more structured and comprehensive methodology for innovation and competitive strategy.

Over the years, I have come across only a handful of very good books touching on the subject of opportunity seeking and trend watching. I am very glad I found this one.

Just as the inside cover says: "Art Turock writes from first-hand experience. An authority in the field of 'breakthrough performance'...", this book did not disappoint me at all.

To me, looking from the angle of business development, there are four key exciting - and useful - ideas in the book, although the author has organised his book into nine chapters,:

- Latent Customer Needs Analysis;
- Fresh Eyes Perspectives;
- Power of Questions;
- Strategic Planning for Innovators;

His "Fresh Eyes Perspectives" are the most insightful I have ever come across. He offers seven very fresh approaches. Wow! Once you really understand - and apply - these approaches, no trends - or changes in the marketplace - can escape from your environmental scanning.

I also like his Turock 29: 29 questions to stir up your thinking cap. These are the field-tested questions that will help you to turn your observations into practical insights, from which you can then generate workable ideas, and eventually create your marketable opportunities. To paraphrase the author, questions are seeds for innovation.

His Past-Present-Future Matrix on page 42 is a gem for planners.

The Strategic Planning for Innovators is best summed up by what the author says : "Strategy is best seen as a 'work in progress'."

My only "complaint" about the book is that the author did not provide any annotated bibliography at the end of the book. However, within the pages, he mentioned casually a handful of excellent books e.g. Art of the Long View, Visionary Handbook, All the Right Moves, which I would strongly recommend readers to pursue them, if you have not read them.

If you have read - and have enjoyed - Edward de Bono's 'Opportunities', Peter Drucker's 'Innovation & Entrepreneurship' and Michel Robert's 'The Innovation Formula', you must read this book. This is also the most current. I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.

This book by Art Turock is an excellent book about creating your niche in business. He makes excellent points about how to look at your current business with fresh eyes and identify areas to exploit and create your destiny. Art looks at business outside the normal parameters of thought to help the reader develop their own plan to find and create their own unique business opportunities. This is one of the best business books that I have read and it was done in a style that was interesting that kept me captivated.