IdeaWise: How to Transform Your Ideas (Hardcover)

by Steve Rivkin (Author), Fraser Seitel (Author) "Yes, you are. We all are. You've just forgotten how to be creative..." (more)
Key Phrases: eliminating bureaucracy, idea industry, product enhancements, United States, New York, Home Depot (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

"...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)

Product Description
Innovation is easy when you’re Ideawise

"Since marketing is basically a battle of ideas, coming up with a good one is paramount. In that respect, IdeaWise should help you enormously."
–Jack Trout, President, Trout & Partners Ltd.
author of Big Brands, Big Trouble: Lessons Learned the Hard Way

"Ideas and innovations are sometimes spontaneous, but more commonly they are the product of training and awareness. This practical book tells you how to turn your ideas into gold."
–Richard D. Lamm, three-term Governor of Colorado

"Ideas are one of the key currencies of marketing. IdeaWise, quite simply, will help marketers, big and small, produce more and better actionable ideas."
–Bill Duggan, Adjunct Associate Professor, New York University, Stern School of Business

"New ideas are all around us– a very simple (yet universally misunderstood) premise from this refreshingly irreverent and eminently practical guide to the ideation process. IdeaWise is essential reading for today’s marketing professional."
–William McDaniel, Director, Public Affairs, ALSTOM Inc.

"IdeaWise should be required reading for every manager in America. It will save your company thousands of dollars in consultants’ fees and help you create a stream of revenue of millions of dollars from the new products and services you will develop."
–Jack McConnell, MD, former Johnson & Johnson executive founder, Volunteers in Medicine Clinic

"It’s very tough for any organization to come up with really new and different ideas that can actually be implemented. This is the first book that actually tells you how to do it–from A to Z."
–Andrew Garvin, President, Find/SVP, Inc.

"Rivkin and Seitel have written an innovative book, crammed with example after example to get your thinking started."
–John Horty, Chairman, National Council of Community Hospitals

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471129569
• ISBN-13: 978-0471129561
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 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.com Sales Rank: #1,416,736 in Books (See Bestsellers 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

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

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)

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.