Book Review: Where Good Ideas Come From (Steven Johnson)

Steven Johnson returns once again in print after his insightful, bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and The Invention of Air to address the universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? He answers in his infectious, culturally ubiquitous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture.

Steven Johnson is a science writer, once a rare breed confined to the academic domain and textbooks. With the emergence of science and social journalism, and journalists venturing into investigative science and social sciences, this genre has become popular with the mainstream reader in the past decade. Thomas Friedman’s best selling, The World Is Flat is already in multiple editions and variants have emerged (updated, expanded and made contemporary) including the 3.0 version!

Steven Johnson has made his book, Where Good Ideas Come From highly readable, if you enjoy:

1)    Innovation and innovative practices

2)    History of inventors

3)    Inventions and their origins/inspirations (Appendix covers all major inventions from the years 1400-2000)

4)    The merging of theories (evolution), chemistry, ecosystem science, social history and geography.

And, even if you did only possess only a cursory knowledge of each of the disciplines mentioned, you would still discover something useful. How are coral formations one of the most ecological clever and sound structures in architecture (and how it clicked with Darwin)? Why were some of the key inventions of the last few centuries (like the World Wide Web), actually collective innovations? Is invention still predisposed in the realm of solitude for the Lone Wolf, or is it a product of Collective Thought? In other words, for every secrecy-bound company like Apple, are there others equally successful that are the antithesis: open environments, networked, non-marketplace-bound products and services?

This book is also suited for soft-necked, armchair, workstation-bound, intrapreneurial types – those delegated with the responsibility of engaging an innovative culture at their workplace. Would this dream be realised, or is it still a pipe-dream - a small horn tooted, perfunctorily, by uncreative, left-brain dominant managers? Johnson attempts to address these issues, and I believe his argument goes full circle, and he succeeds on an optimistic note, however with some useful caveats. Johnson identifies seven principles for the genesis of ideas, and the conditions for development of good ideas for our careers, companies, personal lives, society and culture. He makes us reconsider our paradigms about the concept and business of invention and innovation.

His final chapter, The Fourth Quadrant may sound familiar with fans of financial-guru/author Robert Kiyosaki, yet it has nothing in common except a quadrant. The simple 2X2 matrix covers the relationship of individual/networked inventiveness and market/non-market orientations. It threads all the principles he proposed earlier seamlessly. You may wish to link it with other models of product differentiation, financial literacy, and brand values.

Highly recommended.

Captain America: Leading with Values

I just watched the first release of Captain American: The First Avenger in 3D this afternoon. There was a sizeable audience, and I wondered how many adults deliberately took the afternoon off, or played hooky. The three-dimensional glasses sat well on the bridge of my nose, and the visuals were not harsh on the eyes. Avatar was a great movie, however the 3-D feature made my eyes tired. My tickets for today were S$14 a person, twice what a ticket costs for a digital or standard film version – so my expectations were unusually high. Plus, the trailers I watched in recent weeks built up my expectation for a show that had to be comparable to Ironman (same producers).

Without modeling the review styles of film critics, Ebert or Travis, I offer you my homemade review. In a nutshell: Watch the film. It has plenty of action. It answers the question of the protagonist’s/hero’s origin. Personal values matter if you are a hero. Marvel Comic’s Godfather, Stan Lee has a cameo (again, as he did in previous films with his characters). Samuel L. Jackson makes a cameo. Overall, good acting by all lead actors (including the female protagonist). There were adequate action scenes. CGI is kept to a relevant level; mostly on the bright-blue tesseract (a cube in four dimensions). There are enough PG-rated, romantic interludes that may leave you a little heart-broken.

Most comic-book heroes (I’m old school, so sue me) begin with mild-mannered, overlooked, underdogs. However, they are usually people of good heart and head. They surely have something to prove, since they were bullied all their lives. Instead of being sullied by these traumatic experiences, they eventually emerge as the super-hero or the super-villain. No animated series attracts viewership (or readership) if there was no yin-yang, good-versus-evil, plot. What is a good man? How do you stay good? Does good, always triumph over evil?

Do we need heroes?

Leadership Lessons: How often do you take time off to do something outrageous? How often do you engage your sense of adventure? Which values do you stand for? Which was the last heroic deed you performed?

New Goals, New Strategies and New Commitments

I have seriously reviewed my endurance training system while evaluating my fluctuating racing results over the past year, and decided to realistically go back to fundamentals. Parallel to this, I have evaluated and reviewed my current training and racing strategies.

Fundamentals include the basics. These are foundational knowledge and applications that can help enhance our capabilities. If we stick to them, we seldom go wrong. Despite calling them the basics, we still need to get them right and execute them correctly. For instance, develop proper technique before speed and be injury-free before performance.

I have worked on recovering from minor injuries due to overuse and weak core muscles. My (first-ever case of) plantar fasciitis is clearing up with my diligence and discipline doing core stability workouts, circuit training and kettle-bell workouts for strength building. I have resumed running on Vibrams Five Fingers (VFF) to strengthen my ankles and soles although I read that Barefoot Ken still thinks that any footwear (however minimalist in properties) is still supported, as your feet do not have a complete feel of the ground. I am still experimenting with his approach of: ‘Start barefoot, then transition into shoes.’

My running is coming on strong, however I have reduced it to allow my riding and swimming fitness to be brought up to speed. My new schedule for this racing season include:

1)    Three rides a week (comprising two higher intensity rides, and one long ride).

2)    Focus on swim-specific drills, mainly on exact form especially flotation, gliding, breathing and sighting.

3)    Include one or two, twice-daily, split sessions for one of the three disciplines.

4)    Observe better nutrition of a natural diet, supplemented with protein shakes and antioxidants.

5)    Train with a fast group or squad once a week (for all three disciplines).

6)    Sleep at least 6-8 hours a day, and earlier.

7)    Race selectively, and select my A-races with more discernment (Bay Run 2011; Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2011; Ironman New Zealand 2012; Boston Marathon 2012?).

How do you put your expensive wetsuit on correctly? Carelessness and ignorance can cost you when you damage it with improper suiting up methods. You may even reduce your cost of using additional accessories just to slip into something ‘more comfortable’.

This is a very good blog by M. Rameshon, Singapore’s current record-holder for the full marathon. You get scientific insights with tacit wisdom and experiences of a seasoned, and still very active and capable competitive runner. He is the coach of some of our fastest age-groupers in the marathon.

Have a good week!

Enchantment: A Review of Guy Kawasaki’s Latest Book

Title: Enchantment (2011)

Author: Guy Kawasaki

Pages: 212, embossed hardcover copy with attractive dust-jacket, and accompanying photographs

Publisher: Penguin Group

If providing service is about delighting customers, then enchanting customers is its distant emotional cousin. The word enchantment is closely associated with magic, surprise, astonishment, curiosity and intrigue. Isn’t that what business should be about – the many indirect moments of truth? Innovation in products and services should consider the emotional impact and effect it has on the consumer, considering how the iPhone and iPad have made such a significant influence on our lives.

Despite his overarching reputation as the former-Chief Evangelist of Apple – he promoted with amazing marketing ambidexterity for Apple its Macintosh personal computer - Mr Kawasaki has firmly established himself as the business-owner’s guru, yet he still has more offerings in his bag of tricks. I enjoyed Guy’s ‘The Art of the Start’ - focused mainly on new business upstarts and startups - and how to, sensibly and ostensibly, sell and market products and services. I applied many of his ideas including adopting a Mensch-ian mindset, and closed a few business deals in the process. He insists that values matter, especially when you lead as a role model ('mensch').

This book has relevance to entrepreneurs and intra-preneurs, the latter being initiators of actions in the company. This time, he condenses his research of about 20 books and passes them through his entrepreneurial and marketing filters. He strongly integrates the landmark work of Robert Cialdini, and adapts the latter’s observed principles, and adeptly overlays it over a business fabric. Push & Pull Technology (in chapters 8 and 9 respectively) are about using Social Media 2.0 to further your cause. This he suggests that you do, through your tribes of evangelists, emphasizing the pertinent folds in the digital origami platform, which could unfold your business potential. One guarantee he makes is how to enchant your audience in the first five minutes of your presentation.

For a small book of about 200 pages, Mr Kawasaki has succeeded on several levels. Enchantment is not one of those books where you only read the preface, first and last chapters, and the rest filled with unexciting fillers. You can benefit from applying the principles from any chapter, immediately. Mr Kawasaki writes in his inimitable style with a unique sense of humour. You may be enchanted by his ideas as a venture capitalist, serial author, business consultant and a resume that is wide as it is deep (founder of Alltop.com, and has an honorary doctorate). This book is a good primer to explore his other books such as Rules of Revolutionaries. Simple concepts may be hard to implement; thus, common sense may be uncommon. Instead of becoming a convert, perhaps we can invert our wile and wistful ways of doing business towards a customized (versus customary) approach. Each chapter is supplemented with a success story of enchantment at work, and summarises the usefulness of the content. The numerous anecdotal references make this book content-rich and very readable. To reiterate a triphon, it is: content, content, and content. And this book piques your curiosity with its matter-dense content, without losing the plot.

Like the one-of-a-kind Kawasaki butterfly on his cover - derived from 250 submissions in a clever contest - by walking-his-talk, he subtly urges us to flap our action wings and flutter away to personal discoveries. I strongly recommend this magical book to you – of which mine will be dog-eared, underlined and heavily used soon - my mark of respect to an author.