Art of Innovation 12. Coloring Outside the Lines

Chapter Takeaways:

• Failure is a necessary step to success.
• Strive to innovate in small and large companies alike, although the latter is harder.
• Find a balance between being different and being reasonable.
  

Fail Your Way to Success
"Fail often to succeed sooner"

Grown Men Afraid of Little Mouse
Bigger companies often have bigger penalties for risk taking.

Making New Rides
Look for long-term potential in new trends.

Spirited Skies
Even the most established industries can find room to innovate and differentiate themselves.

Being Big and Acting Small
P&G, Gillette and others have demonstrated their capability to successfully innovate despite their size.

Breaking Work
Changing the way you work can in itself be the innovation.

Linux Breaking the Rules
Linus Torvalds went against the convention that software was intellectual property and started the open software movement.

Give and Receive
Web has tons of smaller versions of the open source method - email, auction, greetings cards etc.

Coloring Outside the Lines
Create unconventional products with unconventional tools, the trick is to never fall in love with the tool.

Not Too Far Out
Influence the organization and allow yourself to be influenced by it.
"Go ahead and color outside the lines, but try your best to stay on the same page."