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Developing new opportunities for growth is an interdisciplinary field, and one that’s constantly evolving as its practitioners develop new understandings and methodologies. While there really isn’t a sizable body of pure “New Opportunities” work per se, there are books in business, design and research that have contributed major pieces to the larger puzzle. We call them the Jump Canon, and they’re central to the work we do. If you’re focused on growth, if you’re hungry to know more about the field, or even if you’re just a shameless namedropper who actually thinks reading is for suckers, here’s a list you might like. The books are organized by Insight, Ideation and Impact, which loosely correspond to phases in the development of a product strategy. Given that we live in an age of instant gratification, you can even click on a book to learn more about it, and then buy it from Amazon.
By James L. Adams
Looking for better ideas? James Adams’ unique approach has helped thousands of people from all walks of life overcome creative blocks, consistently generate great ideas and become adept problem solvers.
By Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell draws upon cutting edge neuroscience and psychology to explore the complexity of snap decisions. A master storyteller, he pieces apart our “adaptive conscious” by looking at social experiments in marriage, speed dating, selling cars, heart attack triage and military simulations.
By Gary Klein
A cognitive psychologist and pioneer in the field of decision making analysis, Gary Klein tags along with firefighters, paramedics, fighter pilots and others who make split decisions. From this research, he and his associates develop a theory of “naturalist decision-making.”
By Steven Johnson
Steve Johnson explores how complex behavior emerges from simple rules and units. He lucidly explains how seemingly unintelligent units like cells come together to create complex, intelligent systems. Johnson takes the reader into the unlikely world of ants and gamers, shedding light on the science of complexity along the way.
By Robert McKim
A creativity how-to, this book offers activities and processes to introduce the reader to the art of seeing, thinking and drawing to come up with truly unique ideas. Experiences in Visual Thinking can serve as a guide for all who are on the hook for consistently coming up with great ideas.
By Robyn Waters
Robyn Waters, Target’s former VP of Trend, Design, and Product Development, explains the art of identifying what’s next. Waters shows how recognizing and reacting to trends is learned skill, and how neophyte trendspotters can become experts with practice.
By Thomas L. Friedman
Economically speaking, the playing field is level for the first time in human history. Technical advance and an evolving political and international trade landscape mean that it is now possible to do business instantaneously with billions of people all over the world. That's not news. Friedman's unique take is that such developments have been accelerating while our eyes have been off the ball. A truly world-defining book that tells us about the present we're living that many still think is off in the future.
By James Lofland and Lyn H. Lofland
A classic manual of qualitative research, Analyzing Social Settings provides how-to approaches for qualitative data collection and analysis. The authors introduce these techniques in a step-by-step manner, making it a useful guide for those seeking to conduct qualitative research studies.
By Margaret D. Lecompte and Jean J. Schensul
Using straightforward language, Lecompte and Schensul introduce readers to the field of ethnography. The book offers practical how-tos as well as the theoretical foundation underlying ethnographic processes and techniques.
By Scott McCloud
Using the medium itself, McCloud’s comic book about comics deconstructs the principles underlying this arguably overlooked genre. Using semiotic analysis, McCloud shows how line, color, words, symbols, panels, and pictures work together to form narratives and create meaning. A must read for anyone who wishes to communicate visually.
By Ray Oldenburg
The Great Good Place looks at the functions of gathering places, and how “third places” – places that are neither home nor work – form an integral part of a community’s social fabric. Oldenburg asserts that these places have been designed out of American communities, and that their absence has a negative impact on society. He offers comparisons to French cafes, German beer gardens, and English pubs to show how we can re-design these places back into American life.
By Robert D. Putnam
Bowling Alone tackles many Americans’ nagging feeling that our society isn’t as cohesive or civilized as it once was. Citing factors like reduced participation in clubs, PTAs, and even Sunday picnics, Putnam looks at how Americans have changed their leisure time activities, and the effect these changes have on society as a whole.
By James Surowiecki
Though following the herd is largely seen as a negative quality, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki uncovers evidence suggesting that groups can be smarter than the smartest individuals comprising them. He explains the qualities necessary to create a wise crowd capable of better results than any single expert.
By Christopher Alexander
Noted architect Christopher Alexander articulates a system of rules for creating vibrant communities. Starting with the smallest of details and moving to a geographic scale, he builds a set of principles that guide everything from chair selection to street width to housing location and terrain preferences.
By Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall
This book puts forth a framework for problem solving and thinking. This framework is based in the theory that problem-solving can be a “universal” exercise: no matter what the issue, a single approach can help people come up with creative solutions.
By Donald A. Norman
Donald Norman looks at the objects that populate our everyday lives from the perspective of the person who’s using them. He offers guiding principles for design that can help people cognitively map an object’s function onto its form.
By Henry Petroski
The humble pencil serves as Petroski’s vehicle to examine the history of design and manufacturing. Petroski considers the evolution of the pencil itself, as well as that of the materials and processes used to make it. The book ranges from minutiae about the pencil’s yellow color to a deeper look at the culture that the pencil reflects.
By Michael Schrage
Michael Schrage argues that companies need “serious play” to help them visualize and prototype new ideas and innovations. He lays out rules for success for companies seeking to incorporate serious play into their business processes.
By Karl T. Ulrich and Steven Eppinger
Product Design and Development provides practical advice on a range of issues from developing products to meet customers’ needs to design for manufacturability and intellectual property protection. Ulrich and Eppinger address the key challenge of knitting together the design, marketing, and manufacturing functions, offering useful advice for product developers.
By Clayton M. Christensen
The Innovator’s Dilemma tackles one of the fundamental challenges of a large, successful company: those things that make it successful are also what make it vulnerable. These companies have systems that encourage the kind of innovation that improves existing products. However, these systems often design out the kinds of innovation that would disrupt a company’s business. Christensen offers ways a company can look for these vulnerabilities and take steps to address them.
By Jim Collins
Good to Great follows Collins’ acclaimed Built to Last to explore how “good” companies can become great ones. Collins and his team of researchers identified a series of often non-intuitive steps that corporations can take to assess their challenges, reinvigorate their talent pool, and build momentum toward developing world-class offerings. This book is highly recommended for those tasked with helping their organizations to excel.
By Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein and Robert Shelton
Making Innovation Work is a handbook for real-world, profitable innovation, from the strategies and organizational structures that help it flourish to the management techniques, incentives and metrics that keep it central to your organization. The authors show the practical groundwork that underlies the mystery of innovation.
By Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad
In Competing for the Future, management gurus Hamel and Pralahad warn of the dangers of complacency with existing markets. They argue that companies that become too entrenched in existing markets risk being blindsided by competitors who are designing for future opportunity.
By Marc H. Meyer and Alvin Lehnerd
Meyer and Lehnerd draw on a wealth of case studies to illustrate the value of building product platforms that allow a company to compete in multiple markets. The authors illustrate how to design using a systems approach, rather than one-off product designs.
By Geoffrey A. Moore
Geoffrey A. Moore, author of "Crossing the Chasm," argues that the only way for companies to escape the vicious cycle of commodity and price competition is to continuously innovate in all that they do, setting their products apart from those of their competitors. From industries with small, specialized audiences to the largest high-volume operations, Moore's frameworks illustrate how and why innovation is central to great companies.
By Michael Porter
A leading thinker in the world of competition and strategy, Michael Porter offers techniques for analyzing both a company’s internal decisions and the external industry environment. The book is aimed at business leaders and entrepreneurs alike who need to hone their strategies in highly competitive environments.
By Everett M. Rogers
Diffusion of Innovations deals with how a new technology becomes widely adopted. This book examines multiple studies on diffusion, and provides examples to illustrate this theoretical underpinning. Rogers’ work is a must-read for those who seek to create new markets and commercialize new technologies.
By James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras
Collins and Porras compare excellent companies to their mediocre counterparts to understand what sets these high-performing organizations apart. The authors uncover a set of shared principles that guide company culture, business practices, and decisions around growth that make these companies “built to last.” This work is a foundational read for anyone who wishes to start a business, or who wants to help a business become outstanding.
By Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point examines the phenomenon of phenomena: how fads start, how opinions change, and how movements begin. Gladwell identifies the three types of people who area critical to any successful phenomenon, and explores the role that each plays in helping Little Things to make a Big Difference.
By Michael Pollan
They say that you are what you eat. And as UC Berkeley Professor and journalist Michael Pollan demonstrates, Americans are corn, and corn is grown using petroleum. Across four radically different meals - Commercial, Big Organic, Small Organic and Hunter/Gatherer - Pollan tracks how food reaches our tables. The picture that emerges is troubling, unsustainable and absolutely essential.
By Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins
Natural Capitalism, written by members of environmental think tank the Rocky Mountain Institute, argues that business and environmental interests are not diametrically opposed. The authors present case studies and to demonstrate that environmentally friendly practices can actually help grow revenues, minimize costs, and increase available jobs.
By George Lakoff
In his highly political treatise, Lakoff examines the role that language plays in shaping our perceptions of the world, and our interpretations of the stories we hear. Using political discourse from recent campaigns, he identifies the guiding metaphors that determine how Republicans and Democrats communicate – and their implications for garnering voter support. The book is a useful guide for those seeking to understand how their own opinions are shaped, and for those seeking to shape the opinions of others.
By Gordon MacKenzie
This book takes on the corporate best practices and standard procedures that can stifle creativity and foil efforts to innovate. MacKenzie draws on his experience at Hallmark to offer tips to those who seek to engender more out-of-the-box thinking at their organizations.