Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others |  | Author: David Kord Murray
Publisher: Gotham
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 246176
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1592404782
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4063
EAN: 9781592404780
ASIN: 1592404782
Publication Date: September 3, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In the new bible of business innovation, renowned creativity expert David Kord Murray reveals the key to the creative process: borrowing. There is no such thing as a truly original idea. Great thinkers throughout history have understood this and used it to their advantage. Bill Gates "borrowed brilliance" to create Microsoft, Steve Jobs "borrowed" to create the Mac, and long before that Sir Isaac Newton used similar thinking techniques to arrive at his theory of gravity. Borrowing Brilliance is challenges our notions of intellectual property and authorship, explores the evolution of a creative idea, and takes us step-by-step through Murray's own unique thought process, which combines analytical and non-traditional thinking techniques. Murray's six step "borrowing" process is one that anyone can master to build business innovation.
Murray combines practical lessons with stories from his own career, as well as the careers of brilliant borrowers past and present. Most people believe creativity is a gift, that it can't be taught, that it's innate in your thinking process and either you have it or you don't. But Murray lifts the veil off the creative process, bringing it from the shadows of the subconscious mind into the conscious world. Creativity is not the result of divine intervention; it is something that can be learned and it is easily within reach.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal September 5, 2009
K. Sampanthar (Boston, MA)
21 out of 24 found this review helpful
Summary
David Kord Murray; aerospace engineer, entrepreneur, innovator, fortune 500 executive; has managed to write one of the most personal, practical and insightful books on the innovation process. It is well written and a joy to read.
Audience
If you want to learn how to innovate; whether you an aspiring or current entrepreneur, working in a large/small corporation or self employed; whether you are working in the corporate world, or entertainment, media or academia; you will find within these pages a process that will lead to higher quantity and quality of ideas. Murray shares with you not only his personal story that illuminates and illustrates the process of innovation, but also gives you a unrivaled view into the journey of an innovator; a hero's journey. This is not for someone that just wants to manage the innovation process; this is for someone that wants to innovate; individually, as a team or company; someone who wants to generate ideas and implement them.
Detailed Review
I have been researching creativity and innovation for 2 decades and I have read far and wide on the subject and even developed my own innovation system based on my research; this is the first time I have read a book that covers the same breath and depth of my research and that came to the same conclusions. Murray's research and journey is very reminiscent from engineer to entrepreneur to innovator. His reading list (some listed at the back of the book and some that I can tell from his writing) mirrors my own from scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs. He draws from the lives and ideas of people like Einstein, Darwin, Edison, Disney, Jobs, Gates, Nash, Lucas, Page and Brin and draws from research in neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, cinematography, economics, biology, evolution and business to develop a process that is one of the best encapsulations of true innovation.
I am not sure I have ever read a business book like this. Murray shares his own personal journey that led to him developing this innovation process. The story is very personal and probably one of the most insightful books on the joys and agonies of innovation and entrepreneurship. His story not only describes the ideas he developed for his companies; a ground breaking financial services firm, one of the most successful direct mail campaigns and successful online tax software; but also shows the messy, warts and all innovation process. Most authors stick to explaining their successes and gloss over their failures. Murray courageously shares the ups and downs, and I feel this makes the book even more powerful. Innovation is messy and most people focus on the end result too much, when the real magic of innovation is in this messy, iterative, recursive and fractal process.
I have to admit when I saw this book and it's subtitle - `The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others' I was expecting yet another lightweight, fluffy book on how to innovate. I was pleasantly surprised, no amazed, to find one of the most thorough articulations of the innovation process. I have been teaching innovation for years and I find myself in awe at how much Murray has managed to fit into this book while making it practical and down to earth. Anyone can pick up this book and if they really read and follow his advice can develop their own ideas. My own personal mission has been to teach innovation to people and finally I have found a book that explains the real process.
Recommendation
The book is well written and the stories bring the deep ideas behind innovation to life. For many years now I have been recommending a series of books to people who want to learn about innovation: The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm, How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate, Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation and A Technique for Producing Ideas (Advertising Age Classics Library). Murray has managed to write a book that encapsulates all these books and makes them obsolete!
Let me repeat; anyone can pick up this book and if they really read and follow his advice can develop their own ideas/innovations. I can't give any higher praise.
NOTE ABOUT THE REVIEW TITLE: Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal - to me is about how when a great artist understands the thought that went into a great idea or a piece of art, they don't just create a replica, they generate a piece of original art themselves that draws from the very essence of an idea. It's the difference between iPod and Zune; iPod reinvented the personal music experience (great artist), Zune just copied the iPod (good artist). Read this book and you will understand how to be a great artist.
Kes Sampanthar
Inventor of ThinkCube
Borrowing Brilliance is a must read ... September 10, 2009
Mara Lindstrom (Boston, MA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Borrowing Brilliance is one of the most intelligent, thought-provoking, and inspiring accounts of the creative process that I have ever encountered. For those of you who are active creative thinkers, you must acknowledge that the process/technique of creative thinking and innovation is articulated so well by author David Kord Murray, that he has made it accessible to those who once viewed it impossible or solely, a 'gift'.
An exhaustive amount of research in all disciplines be it psychology, philosophy, science, literature or entertainment, along with the variety of personalities, inventors, scientists, authors, and entrepreneurs cited, sprinkled with the author's own personal story make this a compelling read. Mr. Murray puts it all on the line by exposing both his own failures and triumphs to demonstrate how his technique is applied and works. For those of you who do not think you have what it takes to be a creative thinker, you will learn. For those of you who have your name on copyrights, trademarks, & patents and believe you are the ultimate creative thinker, you will be humbled. This is truly an important book that I highly recommend for the individual and professional alike.
Something new to say about creativity September 4, 2009
Stephanie Diamond (New York, NY USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I've read many books about creativity over the years in search of golden nuggets. This book fulfills that search! It is amazingly well-written and provides a real action plan for innovation. Not like other fluffy business books about finding good ideas. This book is a must read.
My judgement is in the title... December 13, 2009
R. Lance Garcia (Washington, DC | USA)
...and it is truly brilliant. Like the premise of his book, nothing that David Murray expounds in 'Borrowing Brilliance' is new or original, nor does he ever claim it to be so. The power comes in the fact that he seemed to say what no one else wanted to or has - at least not this convincingly - that being creative means abducting ideas from other persons/sources and then altering the combination enough to claim it as your own.
A mid-1990's Graphic Design manual claimed that 30% was the threshold number of required change to avoid any copyright infringements, but as a lifelong student of fine art (and holder of an AA and BFA in the applied arts), I recall many times being asked, actually told, by my Art professors to copy the works of the Renaissance Masters - contour line by contour line. Even to the point of taking tracing paper onto photo copies and emulating the feel of the stroke that they might have had when creating their respective masterpieces. Copying was how Artist's of old learned from one another, and it is still how many classically trained artists, musicians and athletes learn and train today (all of whom coincidentally, are all proficient at tapping into the alpha-theta state of mind - as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's hyposthesis of "Flow" is also touched upon in this book.)
Since the days of the Master & Apprentice learning schema are no longer the norm, take the author's advice and learn from the wisdom of your direct competitors, substitutes to your products or services, ideal exemplars in other fields, and from the oldest problem-solver: Mother Nature.
Borrowing Brilliance January 7, 2010
M. Lyons (America)
Extremely interesting book! I would highly recommend purchasing it if you are interested in entrepreneurship or idea generation.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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