The Seeds of Innovation: Cultivating the Synergy That Fosters New Ideas

Description

In her book, The Seeds of Innovation, Elaine Dundon shows how companies can foster and grow this innovation. Dundon founded a company called The Innovation Group Consulting, Inc. This is a consulting group that works with individuals and corporations to help them with innovation. Dundon focuses on three major types of innovations: Efficiency Innovation, Evolutionary Innovation and Revolutionary Innovation. All new innovations within an organization can fall into these three categories. Which type of these three innovations the organization chooses is dependent on what goals the organization seeks. Efficiency Innovations deals with making a product or service faster or more efficient, such as extending service hours of a fast food chain. Evolutionary innovation deals with making an already existing service or product "distinctly new and better," such as the ATM for 24 hour banking. Revolutionary Innovation focuses on introducing a radical new change to the marketplace, such as McDonald's did with fast food. All organizations need to decide on which three of these innovations to focus on. In The Seeds of Innovation Dundon also focuses on individual innovation as well as organizational innovation. She creates a nine-step method for improving innovation within organizations. In order to implement these steps Dundon first focuses on the ability of the individual to be creative in an organization. This creativity can come from a number of tools Dundon offers, such as mind mapping, brainstorming as well as different ways of thinking and asking questions. I did not like a few things about the book. I felt it was overall interesting and informative, however I don't think it broke new ground on the subject. A lot of the most powerful ideas found in the book were paraphrased from others, such as Michael Ray's "voice of judgment". It's good to explain such ideas clearly because they are important in innovation, however I didn't feel Dundon brought enough of her own ideas to the table. All her ideas are very intuitive and mundane. She seems to be just saying essentially the same themes from different angles. The book could be easily boiled down to a handful of key points. Moreover, I don't think managers will learn a whole lot from the last two sections of the book. These seem to go over very basic concepts of innovation within an organization. Anyone who has little backround in the world of buisness will find this book informative. CEO's or other people with buisness experience may find parts of the book simple, however their are a number of techniques all people can benefit from. This is a clear, simple read but i just think there are better books on the subject out there.