Monday, August 23, 2004
Juice: The Creative Fuel That Drives World-Class Inventors by Evan I. Schwartz
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; (September 1, 2004)
ISBN: 1591392888
http://gotjuice.org/bookdesc.htm?v=glance&s=books
Building value in our global economy increasingly demands creating new opportunities and solving new problems. In a nutshell, that’s what inventors do. Just as software has driven growth and opened new markets over the past generation, invention is poised to become the X-factor for the future.
With a foreword by former Microsoft research chief Nathan Myhrvold, this groundbreaking book takes us inside the laboratories and inside the minds of some of today’s leading inventors to demystify the critical process by which they imagine and create. Evan I. Schwartz argues that invention has remained steeped in myth and misunderstanding. We tend to view invention as a byproduct of accidental discovery or supernatural genius rather than what it truly is: a focused quest fueled by a special creativity latent in each of us.
In 2005, there will also be a television series based on this book airing on PBS: (http://gotjuice.org/pbs.htm)
JUICE: The Inventor’s Fuel is an entertaining and exciting 6-part film series that will air as part of PBS’ NOVA series, profiling the new breed of entrepreneurs that are reinventing invention. NOVA , the popular science show from WGBH in Boston, airs in prime time Tuesdays at 8 p.m. in 99 percent of the country and is PBS’ second highest rated show. Programs reach a nationwide audience of 8 million and are seen in nearly 100 countries. JUICE will have its own section on the NOVA website, which receives up to a million hits a month. Also, the NOVA Teachers Guides, with curriculum material for each NOVA show, reach 90,000 U.S. teachers a month.
What goes into the creative process? What does an inventor do? How does an idea get created? How is it brought to market? What about patents? How do inventors make money? What do they do when they’re not inventing? Can invention be taught? What gets them out of bed in the morning? What can you learn from them? All of these potable questions will be answered in JUICE.