Something Really New: Three Simple Steps to Creating Truly Innovative Products [Hardcover]

Denis J. Hauptly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 7, 2007

Product innovation is the key to business growth. But many books deal with innovation from the business process view alone, or confuse innovation with creativity. Written by an innovation expert whose products generate more than one billion dollars in annual revenue, "Something Really New" introduces a straightforward but powerful framework for creating exciting new product and service concepts ...simply by asking three essential questions.From an electronic hotel kiosk that provides return airline boarding passes for guests, to something as mundane as the evolution of the toaster, the book provides entertaining, illuminating examples that show how to determine what customer needs aren't being met, using simple methods to arrive at revolutionary conclusions. For example, "What is a product really used for?" The question may seem elementary, but the right answer is far from obvious. This and other key questions demonstrate how readers can move beyond mere market research to get to the root of real innovation Practical and eye-opening, this book shows companies how to take the kind of startling leaps that will leave their competition in the dust.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hauptly's simple and straightforward approach will enable organizations to quickly and inexpensively create new products and services that have real value." - Publishers Weekly

"Engagingly and humorously written and filled with clear examples and constructive approaches, Something Really New could just as easily be called “Something Really Useful.” In itself, the book is an innovation that will help ease the previously daunting task of creating products that spark and sustain bottom-line growth." - InnovationWatch.com

"Something Really New is a quick read, peppered with anecdotes and examples." - Industry Week

"This practical approach identifies likely obstacles to innovation and offers proven tricks to overcome them." -Entrepreneur

"The book contains valuable insights for managing innovators." --Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Book Description

CEO Refresher The Best Books of 2007

Product innovation is the key to business growth. But many books deal with innovation from the business process view alone, or confuse innovation with creativity. Written by an innovation expert whose products generate more than one billion dollars in annual revenue, Something Really New introduces a straightforward but powerful framework for creating exciting new product and service concepts ... simply by asking three essential questions.

From an electronic hotel kiosk that provides return airline boarding passes for guests, to something as mundane as the evolution of the toaster, the book provides entertaining, illuminating examples that show how to determine what customer needs aren’t being met, using simple methods to arrive at revolutionary conclusions. For example, “What is a product really used for?” The question may seem elementary, but the right answer is far from obvious. This and other key questions demonstrate how readers can move beyond mere market research to get to the root of real innovation. Practical and eye-opening, this book shows companies how to take the kind of startling leaps that will leave their competition in the dust.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 17 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (November 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814400329
• ISBN-13: 978-0814400326
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #617,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Written by an Actual Innovator, November 12, 2007

By 

Change the World! (Sebastopol, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Something Really New: Three Simple Steps to Creating Truly Innovative Products (Hardcover)

This book goes on the shelf right by Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma, and Gary Hamel's Leading the Revolution. But of the three, Hauptly's Something Really New might be the best, and certainly will be the most useful.

Innovation books frequently are written by business school professors about their clients. This leads to books that are heavy on theory, and inadequately critical of their subjects.

Hauptly's book is like other Innovation books in that it is concise, readable, and filled with helpful illustrative examples. But the effect is entirely different when the author is an actual Innovator writing for other Innovators about how to Innovate, rather than a color commentator describing action on a distant field.

Gone from Hauptly's account are the fawning success stories. Gone are the complex theories and graphs. Gone even are the unrealistically simple formulas that turn into traps when you try to do it in the real world (think Anthony Ulwick's What Customers Want). What remains is practical advice about how to innovate and how to avoid false innovation.

Hauptly takes us into mind of the Innovator like no other book I have read (even more than Joel Barker's classic, The Business of Paradigms). Not only does Hauptly pave the road for aspiring Innovators, but perhaps more importantly he sets out all the warning signs and side-markers to help avoid common psychological traps. Hauptly takes equal care to explain what is NOT an innovation, which in the real world may be the more vexing problem.

Something Really New is actually two books in one. Although Part One will stand as a major contribution to the literature simply by offering the first true Innovator's Deskbook, I was equally impressed by Part Two, which covers the people issues, organization, and culture of innovation. Where other books dance around these sensitive political issues, Hauptly is direct and pragmatic about how and where innovation can occur, who does it, who stops it, and how.

The book's chat-over-lunch tone and brain-teaser exercises are a sleight-of-hand that will lull some readers into thinking that the book lacks depth. However, the careful eye will note where the conceptual framework shows through (page 81 cannot resist a 2x2 grid; page 107 introduces the phrase "functional contiguity," and of course the concept of net utility is actually dynamite in the presence of false innovation).

The book will be least interesting to academics seeking theoretical exposition, and least welcome by senior executives who would cheer lead for innovation without actually aligning the organization and doing the work. For them, this book offers little.

But as a no-nonsense player's guide to the game, Something Really New is in a league of its own. It will be read by aspiring and experienced product development staff in all industries. Some of the concepts Hauptly introduces, like mutations, net utility, and task linking, may enter the popular lexicon of innovation. But the book is most to likely win the hearts of product developers working in the trenches, among whom word will spread of the brightest light yet shone on a notoriously dark terrain.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical Book Teaches Product Managers to Innovate, February 23, 2008

By 

Jennifer B. Davis (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Something Really New: Three Simple Steps to Creating Truly Innovative Products (Hardcover)

So many corporate innovations are not. They are incremental "feature enhancements" that do not change the user experience or differentiate defensibly from current or future competition. This book could change all that. In a readable style with exercises throughout, the author teaches people how to think about their products, but more importantly the tasks of their users (awful word, but you get the idea) in new ways. Highly recommend to anyone involved in product development or corporate leadership.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative Insight, December 27, 2007

By 

Edmund J. Boutin "Ed B." (Meredith, NH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Something Really New: Three Simple Steps to Creating Truly Innovative Products (Hardcover)

This book is clearly written and well organized. For all its lack of pretension, it is a place to go when a vexing problem becomes a vexation. I am a manager and business owner. I rarely have time to think about how to solve problems, as opposed to thinking about problems. This book gives me a useful tool to focus on the former, instead of the latter. I especially liked the author's task linkage and net utility concepts. These practical steps provide the most important test of any problem solution, identifying whether I have asked the right question. It is evident that the author has faced the formidable task of identifying a problem, seeing a solution, determining whether the solution is worth the bother, and kicking enough ingrained resistance out of the way to put the solution to work.

This book is well worth reading for those who choose to become and remain competitive,especially in today's globalized economy, where value added is what distinguishes quality from mere cost competition.