This blog is co-authored by Kes and Sue Sampanthar, the husband and wife founders of MetaMemes
LLC and inventors of ThinkCube. As partners in a small innovation company, we are continually learning and thinking about new ideas. Our posts will be varied in topic, but will generally relate to creativity, innovation, technology, and business. We will also keep you up to date on the day-to-day happenings of our small and growing company. Thanks for stopping by!
I thought I would share my approach to reviewing books, including the template I use to structure my thinking.
General Approach
While reading the book I take copious notes normally in the margins, highlighting/underlying key points and book-marking the pages with key notes.
For books I review I return to my notes and transfer them to a notebook or directly into the review under the ‘Details’ section.
Book Review Template
This is book review template I use with a description and questions for each section:
The Summary
[This section is aimed at people that want a quick summary]
1. Describe the book, author and overall opinion about the book in ~3 sentences
The Audience
[This section is to identify the potential audience]
2. Who is the book aimed at?
3. Who would like the book?
4. Who would dislike the book?
The Details
[This section is for the meat of the review. I realize not everyone reads long reviews, but this section is for people who want more information about the book]
1. Detailed description of the book
2. What is the book about
3. Details about the author
4. What qualifies the author to write about this subject
5. Main points about the book – pick 5-7 points from the book that are representative
6. What did you like?
7. What did you dislike?
The Take-Aways
[This section is for what people should take-away from the book]
1. What are the main points to take away from the book (don’t give away too much)
2. What is your recommendation for the book
Instructions
I generally start with the details section, pulling notes from the book that I made while reading. once I have the details down, I generally tackle the summary section. My opinions generally go in the Audience and Take-Aways sections.
Book Reviewing Philosophy
I came to this format after trying a few different approaches. I have a tendency to write long reviews and realized that people normally don't read them. After thinking about how I read reviews, I came up with a structure that will help the most people. The summary and take-away sections are aimed at people that want quick information. The audience and details are there for people that want a little more information about the book.
I read a lot of books and generally only review a few books I really like and want to support. Some will call me a fair-weather reviewer, but I feel I am far better at positive reviews than negative ones. When I don't like a book there can be many reasons that normally have more to do with me than the book.
The Summary
Martin Lindstrom has written an excellent book on an important subject – Neuromarketing – why we buy what we do. He presents the findings from one of the largest scientific studies conducted scanning the brains of consumers as they are exposed to marketing, branding and products. The results of this study are eye-opening and will not only change marketing but hopefully consumer buying patterns and product development.
The Audience
I realize that a book about marketing and neuroscience might not be immediately appealing to everyone, but I am confident that you will enjoy it and come away with a new understanding about yourself and why you buy. Being aimed at a broad audience does mean it lacks some of the depth that marketers would like to see, but the conclusions alone are worth the price of entry for the business crowd. Don’t expect to come away with practical strategies as a consumer or marketer but I am confident there will be a lot more books on this subject over the next few years. It is intentionally designed and marketed in the ‘Tipping Point’ mold and for once I actually think it warrants this categorization.
The Details
There have been a few books recently that look at marketing through the lens of neuroscience. Leveraging the new technologies that allow us to see what is going on in the brain when we are exposed to marketing messages and products. Martin Lindstrom, a marketing expert and consultant to some of the largest companies in the world, takes neuromarketing research to a new level. He conducted the largest study of consumers and how they really react/respond to products and their marketing. The results go far beyond and actually contradict some of the current market research and thinking.
Buy-ology is a well written book that not only explains the research without getting too technical but also explains some of the conclusions and implications. Even though this is a marketing book it will appeal to a broad audience since we are all consumers and should be interested in the findings of this book. Not only did the research contradict current thinking about marketing, but it actually contradicts our own perceptions of why we buy.
By aiming at a broad audience Lindstrom has sacrificed some of the juicy technical details behind the research; but he covers enough of neuroscience to explain the experiments and findings. The book is full of anecdotes and reads more like a page-turning thriller than your standard business book. I am fairly sure this is aimed to be another ‘Tipping Point’ or ‘Freaknomics’ type book and to be fair it actually has all the hallmarks.
I am not going to spoil the book by revealing the findings, but as a consumer it will make you think twice about what you buy, and as marketer it will definitely change your strategy and hopefully your products.
The Take-Aways
This is an important book on a subject that all of us should know about. Even though this is a marketing book and will appeal to marketers, I feel this should be read by everyone. We are all consumers and should understand how and why we buy what we do.
The fear about this book is going to be that ‘evil’ marketers will exploit this information to sell us things we don’t need, want or care about. My hope is that this information will actually:
a) Make us more aware of our own buying decisions and
b) Help companies create products that we want.
I am never one to predict the next ‘Tipping Point’ but it has all the right ingredients: important topic, new counter-intuitive information, subject with broad appeal and well written to the point of being hard-to-put-down!
I highly recommend this book. It is one of my top 5 books of 2008 going along side ‘Brain Rules’, ‘Buying In’, ‘Sway’ and ‘Snoop’.
Inventor of ThinkCube
John Medina has written one of the best brain books I have read. He is a molecular biologist and director of Brain Center for Applied Learning at the Seattle Pacific University. He explains the latest research on the brain, and there have been a lot of advances recently on how the brain works. He boils them down to 12 rules that will help you in all walks of life. If you want an owner’s manual for the brain then this is probably the one that should be handed out with every new-born.
The Audience
Everyone and I mean everyone should read this book! As long as they have a homo-sapien brain, if you have one of the older models; homo erectus, neanderthal you should probably wait for evolution! This is truly an owner’s manual for the brain! If you are a student or knowledge worker you should run; yes running will actually help you digest the material in the book better (Rule #2 – Exercise – exercise boosts brain power); to buy it and read it! Medina outlines some of his own thoughts on how to leverage the rules in the home, school and work.
The Details
John Medina has written one of the best brain books I have read (Rule #5 Short Term Memory – repeat to remember, Rule #6 Long Term Memory – repeat to remember). There are many books out at the moment that talk about the latest research on brains but John’s is undoubtedly the best. Neuroscience has taken some giant leaps in the understanding of how the brain works in the last 20 years. I was researching AI back in the early 90’s and since then there has been a lot of new research in this area. For the last year I have been catching up and reading everything I can find on neuroscience and that was how I stumbled across Medina’s book. I nearly put it aside since it seemed too basic but boy am I glad I didn’t. This book is fun to read and I learned a lot. I love John’s approach of only including research that follows certain criteria. For a study to appear in this book it has to pass the Medina Grump Factor (MGF) – (John refers to himself as a grumpy scientist)
1) Research must be published in a peer-reviewed journal
2) The research must be successfully replicated
Even though the material in this book is based on cutting edge research you should not feel intimidated. This book is well written and the material is presented following many of rules that are outlined. The book is actually a pleasure to read!
Following these rules has lead Medina to not only structure the book so it is easy to digest; adding stories, chunking information, providing summaries etc but he has also included a DVD with videos and an accompanying website with more information and references. This is truly a full sensory experience (Rule #4 – Attention – We don’t pay attention to boring things!, Rule #9 – Sensory Information – Stimulate more of the senses, Rule #10 Vision – Vision trumps all other senses)
If you want to understand your brain and improve it; and everyone should want to understand their brain and improve it; you should read this book.
The Take-Aways
I can’t say enough good things about this book. John Medina has written an excellent book leveraging all the latest research about the brain and turning it into a set of rules to remember. Your brain will never feel the same again! Read and then follow Medina’s advice on how your brain remembers new information and how often you should review it (Rule #5 Short Term Memory – repeat to remember, Rule #6 Long Term Memory – repeat to remember).
Kes created a ThinkCube presentation for a client in New Zealand yesterday and apparently SlideShare's editorial staff liked it too! They selected this presentation as one of their featured presentations on the SlideShare homepage:
Unfortunately, you can't see the cool animations Kes and I made for this one when you view it via the web. To see the animations, you can download the presentation and view it on your local computer.
Personality Not Included (PNI), a new book by Rohit Bhargava, SVP of Digital Strategy at Ogilvy, is about why companies lose their authenticity and how they can get it back by injecting, what he calls, personality. Through examples from companies with and without personality Rohit lays out the foundation for this new macro trend that encapsulates many of the best ideas in business today; authenticity, word of mouth and social media.
The Audience
This book will appeal to readers that have loved books by Seth Godin and Chris Anderson; it is part call to action and part practical guide. People interested in the current trends in business today from social media to word of mouth will find a fascinating macro trend that will add a new dimension to the current business environment. Unfortunately I think the people that most need to read this book; companies in desperate need of personality; will miss this book since it doesn’t fit into their business-as-usual world. Buy this and send it to the next faceless company CEO that treats you, the customer, as a nobody hiding behind corporate platitudes.
The Details
PNI is about the end of the faceless corporation. In this age of social media, long tails and word of mouth the consumer wants products and services from companies with “personality”. No longer is it acceptable to focus on metrics, efficiency and scalability if it’s at the expense of customers.
PNI doesn’t just highlight the problem but walks through a set of tools to imbue personality into organizations; not to say that if you are making a crappy product you can add personality and make it a best-seller.
This is one of the most unique business books I have read in a long time and contrary to its title has a lot of personality included! Rohit takes much of his own advice and has created a business book with a difference. The book lays out the ground-work behind the idea of ‘personality’ walking through real-world examples that illustrate the key points, but then spends the last third of the book, not just driving the point home with case study after case study, but providing techniques, guides and tools that are immediately implement-able. The uniqueness of the book doesn’t stop there, you can tell that Rohit has put a lot of thought into this book and the personality jumps out throughout the book; there are easter eggs hidden throughout the book (checkout the ISBN page of the book for an alternate introduction --- which is very cool!). Instead of the standard format of most business books, Rohit decided to take a slightly different tack on the examples; they are all based on 2 research techniques that he outlines in the book: 1) Conversing – the stories are based on direct conversations with the people involved, 2) Consuming – all the products and services in the book have been consumed or experienced. These 2 elements make for a truly down-to-earth and authentic book. Every part of this book including his research and writing are made completely transparent which is what he preaches to corporations. Don’t hide behind the policies and business-as-usual techniques; what your customers want is to see a real human being behind the products and services.
The Recommendation
I can’t recommend this book enough! Here are some reasons to read this book:
- Personality is a macro trend – the 3 hottest topics in business today are; social media, word of mouth marketing and authenticity. Personality is the underlying theme behind all of these elements.
- Real world experience – Rohit is an expert in branding and marketing and as part of his job working for one of the largest marketing agencies in the world, he gets to put into action his advice. He is not a business theorist, but someone that practices what he preaches in business today
- Real-world stories – the book is chock full of real-world stories explaining the concepts and highlighting good and bad examples.
- Theory to Practice – the book’s overall format is designed to take someone from theory to action through the most expedient path. You will feel compelled to take action after reading this book and you will have the tools to do it.
- Lost-In-Thought (LIT) – this is what I classify as a ‘Lost In Thought’ book. You can’t just passively read this book. While reading this book, you find yourself lost in thought, thinking about the ideas you have just read. Keep a pen, highlighter and post-its handy while reading this book, you don’t want to lose any of the ideas that this book will stimulate.
- Fun – it’s not often you can say a business book is fun to read, but this really is! I felt as if I was interacting with the book, not only the ideas as mentioned above but also the examples I had to go look up on the internet and the easter eggs.
This book goes up there with some of my favorite marketing and business books. If you liked books by Seth Godin, Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell then you will enjoy this book.
I loved this book so much that, as part of a promotion, I am giving away free copies of this book with the Innovation tool I invented. Check it out at:
http://metamemes.typepad.com/beyond_brainstorming/2008/04/free-stuff-for.html
Today is Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday! Da Vinci was born April 15th 1452; yes, it has been 556 since one of the most creative individuals in history was born. Happy Birthday Leonardo!!
It’s not a coincidence that today also marks the one week count down to World Creativity and Innovation Day (CID), April 21st. CID was first celebrated in 2001 after a decade of collaboration between four Canadian faculty members at the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) in
The goal of CID is to encourage people in schools, communities, businesses, families, organizations, and countries to:
1. Generate new ideas
2. Use imagination
3. Make new decisions
This spirit of this day aligns so well with our mission (bringing people and ideas together) we couldn’t resist doing our part. We brainstormed some ideas of how to give people the tools to generate more ideas, use their imagination, and make new decisions.
I had just finished reading Rohit Bhargava’s new marketing book called Personality Not Included. Rohit tells companies to stop being faceless and leverage techniques and tools to instill personality into every interaction they have with their customers. It’s a great book and, as I do with every book I love, I collect the best ideas to add to my idea library. Well that inspired an idea for the perfect gift to share with our customers! It goes something like this:
SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL OFFER
The first 100 ThinkCube orders placed between April 15th and 21st, 2008 will receive a free copy of Personality Not Included and 6 bonus ThinkCube cards with ideas from the book.
ThinkCube Personality Included Special CID Offer
Please note, orders placed during promotional period may require extended handling time. Any order placed with expedited shipping will receive ThinkCube as specified, and then the promotional materials in a separate shipment.
As the CID tagline goes, “Admit it. You’re Creative.” Help us celebrate CID; generate ideas, use your imagination, and make new decisions!
One of the core principles behind MetaMemes and ThinkCube is to bring people and ideas together. I have been meaning to start a social network around ThinkCube for over a year. We finally have it up and running, check it out:
http://thinkcube.ning.com/
We developed this on Ning (www.ning.com), which is a great platform for creating social networks. It is very easy to get up and running quickly. Brendan O’Keefe was the graphic designer behind making the network look professional. I wanted to formally thank him for such a nice job and that he managed to fit it in around getting married – congratulations Brendan and thanks for the help! He is a great designer and as he describes himself as a ‘creative generalist’. Check out his website at:
http://www.planetbok.com/
Here are some of the goals behind the ThinkCube social network:
• Bring people that are interested in innovation together.
• Facilitate the fans of ThinkCube to share their ideas, tips and examples with others.
• Provide a venue for training, videos, discussions about innovation and ThinkCube.
• Get feedback and suggestions for future expansions.
• Get news about up coming events, competitions and seminars etc.
Building a community around ThinkCube has always been my goal. The best ideas come at the intersections of domains and sometime the best way to find these intersections is connect with people from all walks of life.
People, Ideas… you are formally introduced.
Come join us and start sharing your ideas.
Each year the North American Packaging Association recognizes the industry’s most innovative, creative, and distinctive designs. This year, ThinkCube’s packaging won 2 Gold Awards, an Excellence Award, and the prestigious Judges Citation Award!
GOLD AWARD 
Best Innovation Category
GOLD AWARD
Educational Material Category
EXCELLENCE AWARD
Best in Superiority of Construction
JUDGES CITATION AWARD
Each of the three judges that comprise the Association judging panel select one entry in the Annual Competition for special recognition. These three entries each receive distinctive recognition and industry acclaim and are presented with a Judges Citation Award. Judge Mary Byrd, President, Mary Byrd Productions,
“This package is “Just a chip off the old block”…and what a dynamic presentation for an education enhancement program. This box is oversized, sturdy and rests at an angle for ease of access to the interior components. The angle cut off the square edge of the box lends itself to a much greater position in the marketplace of educational tools. The bright orange color says don’t pass me by, look inside. What a fabulous combination of color, size, construction, components and utility. A job well done!”
The other 2008 recipients of the Judges Citation Award include the makers of packaging for Grey Goose Vodka and Tommy Bahama.Here’s
Chris
Wilson, over at The Fresh Peel, just
announced a very cool creativity contest which MetaMemes is proudly sponsoring.
All
you have to do is show what creativity means to you through a digital
photograph and you’ll have 2 chances at winning a free ThinkCube. One winner will be chosen by popular vote and the
other by organizers Ramon Vullings, co-author of Creativity Today and
Chris Wilson, from The Fresh Peel.
For
complete contest details, visit The Fresh Peel:
Creativity Contest. Get snapping… you only have until February 6th to
enter!
Good luck!
After our recent presentation at CanUX 2007, Kes sat down with Qixing Zheng (UX Advisor, Microsoft Canada) to talk about creativity and ThinkCube. You can hear a podcast of their conversation on the MSDN Canadian User Experience Blog. The audio is embedded in a Silverlight podcast player. If you can’t see the player, you probably need to download the Silverlight 1.0 plug-in.
Keith Sawyer: Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
Group Genius: The Creative Power of CollaborationThere have been a few books recently that have challenged the commonly held beliefs and myths of innovation. Keith Sawyer; professor of psychology at Washington University in St Louis; tackles probably the most prevalent innovation myth, the lone genius. He has written a fascinating book on the power of collaboration and how it is the secret to breakthrough creativity.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested innovation and wants a practical framework for infusing an innovative culture throughout their company. This is by no means a simple `how to' book, it is far more. Great writing, great ideas and if you act upon it you will get great results!! (*****)
David Weinberger: Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
If you enjoyed any of Weinberger’s previous books (Cluetrain Manifesto, Small Pieces Loosely Joined) you will not be disappointed. This is a pleasure to read and will make you think – my two most important attributes when it comes to books. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in information and the current trends on the internet. Weinberger has been right on the money with his observations of the internet and this book is no different; organizing information in the age of the internet is an important subject. Read why there is more to information than search alone. (*****)
Jessica Livingston: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
Jessica Livingston has written an amazing book. If you want to read the stories behind some of the most well known software companies in the last 30 years, you will find it in this book. But Livingston hasn’t just covered the usual suspects (Google, Microsoft), she has included a diverse collection from Steve Wozniak (Apple) to David Heinemeier Hansson (37 Signals), Dan Bricklin (Visicalc) to Blake Ross (Firefox). It covers a lot of ground from the early 80’s software boom to the Web 2.0 starts ups. But there is more than just stories about starting companies, there is real advice from the frontline trenches of software start-ups. Keep your post-it notes and highlighter handy, if you are like me you will be annotating and highlighting a lot! (*****)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Csikszentmihalyi's has studied creative people from all walks of life and condensed his findings into this book. The analysis into common patterns, styles and approaches of creative people is fascinating. This is not a quick how-to book, but you will gain many insights into the creative process. (*****)
Andrew Hargadon: How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate
How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate
This is book looks to answer the question, "Can Innovation really be routine?" This book not only answers that questions but actually gets into the details of "How". The title of the book is "How Breakthroughs Happen" and Hargadon definitely successfully explains the `How'. He doesn't proclaim that it is easy, but he does give a road map of how to achieve innovation through technology brokering, he even explains the different paths that apply to different types of companies.
If you truly want to create an innovation factory, you should read this book and then apply what it teaches you. (*****)
Scott Berkun: The Myths of Innovation
The Myths of Innovation
The book is a fun read, and Scott has a very witty writing style. His stories and personal experiences help to explain some of his counter-intuitive demythologizing. As always the classic sign of a book I love, is that by the end I have many pages highlighted and copious notes written down the margins. Scott’s book definitely fell into the category of ‘stimulating’. Even when I disagreed with him, I agreed with his underlying point.
I highly recommend the book. Scott has done a great service by debunking many of cherished myths that hold many people back from innovating. It is ironic that a book that aims to destroy innovation myths actually provides a set of insights that will help anyone come up with ideas. (*****)
Jacques Hadamard: The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field
The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field
Hadamard's book has a great description of the mathematical invention process. The detailed story of how Henri Poincare stepped on to a bus and solved a mathematical problem is a perfect example of the power of incubation. This book also has a famous letter from Einstein explaining the power of 'combinatory play' in invention and creativity.
This is one of Thinkcubation's foundational books. (*****)
Tom Kelley: The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
The art of innovation is a classic book on 'How to Innovate' from IDEO - one of the most innovative companies in the world. Read and re-read to master innovation - the secrest are there - but you need to read between the lines for the real gems. (*****)
Jeff Hawkins: On Intelligence
On Intelligence
Hawkins delves into a model to simulate intelligence that goes much further than the usual neural network. The memory prediction algorithm is a key to understanding our minds work. Chatper 6 - is well worth the price of the whole book - it is challenging but it will give you some insights into the brain that I have not found in other neuroscience books.
If you want to be more creative - you need to understand how the brain works. We still have a ways to go - but I think Hawkins is on to something important. (*****)
Frans Johansson: The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures
Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation
This is a great book about creating new ideas at the intersection of fields, disciplines and culture. Johansson puts forward a solid framework for innovating at the intersection drawing from his in-depth research with 'intersectional inventors'. I love this book since crystallizes the principle behind MetaMemes and ThinkCube. I can’t rave about this book enough! Buy Buy Buy... (*****)
