Shah Wadjija, a colleague and expert in User Experience and Interfaces spotted this while surfing on his iPad:

O’Reilly authors Christian Crumlish (curator of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library and director of the Information Architecture Institute) AND Erin Malone (Principal with Tangible UX) in their book
“Designing Social Interfaces” take examples from my Social Networking profiles to explain a few concepts.

Quite serendipitous.

I remember a few years back, Google used one of my article headlines “The keyboard is mightier than the sword” to explain a concept (It was about 6 years back so no reference where I could point).

Good to understand what prompted them to take a small snippet- maybe the clean caricature, or did they really use a software to check some profiles more relevant for their examples.

Interesting find- thanks Shah.

“Think About It”- Ideas shaping digital media and marketing in the new decade

The new book will be launched by mid February in both Kindle format and paperback format.

We had seeked your inputs and opinions on which cover design layout did you like the best.

Thanks everyone for not only helping us choose the right cover but also with your critique and suggestions for improvements.

We went through all the suggestions in detail and tried to achieve a balance. And that brought us to the final choice.

And the Winner is- Cover design no. 8

Of course this design will not be used as it is here- but with further changes and more cleaning up. Will keep you posted.

A whole lot of friends commented and decided us to choose the right cover- across platforms- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and emails.

Truely, a cover design chosen by you. Some of the responses here:

Excerpt from Twitter:

Excerpt from Facebook:

Some, like Maria, CEO and co-founder of Linqia from Barcelona- had some gems for all the designs

(We loved it!)- her comment:

=============================================

Dear Shalabh,

Hope my comments help in some way:

• Cover 8: Very clean, illustration offers insight into the theme of the book, great font
• Cover 7: Icons are effective showing humans however overused throughout the industry. Also the font doesn’t work at all.
• Cover 6: Warm design which weakens the overall affect you’re trying to achieve by making the statement ‘Think about it’. It’s also quite busy.
• Cover 5: The lines at the top make the cover too busy and conflict with the colorful people icons. Again – these icons are used heavily throughout the industry which could connote ‘another web 2.0 book’
• Cover 4: Very beautiful design however on first impression the book looks to be about financial matters
• Cover 3: Extremely busy! Too many design elements.
• Cover 2: The wireframe of the man is effective and would work well with typography from cover 8 with no additional graphics.
• Cover 1: Great colours. Strong typography. Lines are also strong in ‘thought’ and ‘landscape’

The 2 that really stand out and project a positive first impression are covers 1 and 8.

Maria

===============================

I can’t put all the comments here- but some friends went to the extent of finding the right font and asking us to use those in the text instead.

It was great. We tried to follow as much as we could (and as much as our Art Director would allow us to)

Now just if the economics could allow us to collectively arrive at the cost of the book too.

Think about it

Shalabh

Twitter- @shalabhpandey

Keep in touch for further updates.

“Think About It”- Ideas shaping digital media and marketing in the new decade

Its love’s labour. Really.

After more than a year of running ChasingTheStorm – with loads of loving time spent- and acquiring loads of loving friend circle, this is it. I put together a book.

“Think About It” is a book inspired by Ideas from this website. With more meat, more thoughts and well, in a different format. The title of the book is actually the signature I use in most articles.

The book covers Digital Media and Marketing trends in the new decade, Mobile Media, new marketing paradigms and Marketing Case studies.

It is written not as a tutorial to digital media platforms or Digital marketing 101. Rather- it attempts to raise a storm on specific Digital media issues. Offering an easy read for the evolved, thinking marketer, it is a book to raise debate- and expects a degree of interest in Digital Media.

I’ll talk more about it later- but since I am quite excited about it, I decided to put up the news anyways.

It’ll go in print soon (and available online and on the Kindle)- but as usual, not without your support in its making. I need you to help pick up the right cover design.

My good friend Ankur Khurana volunteered to get the cover design done- and boy- he did get them designed in two days flat. Many thanks buddy. And many thanks to MG Harti- the Art Director who helped the idea come into reality by doing many iterations.

So here are the designs- (the copy/text and some elements are dummy).

Just from a design layout perspective- let me know which ones do you like the best?

You could comment here, or

Email me: shalabhpandey at gmail dotcom

DM or @ at Twitter : @shalabhpandey

The cover Designs for “Think About It”

GROUP 1:

Cover One

Cover 2

Cover 3

Cover 4

GROUP 2:

Cover 5

Cover 6

Cover 7

Cover 8

Comment here, or

Email me: shalabhpandey at gmail dotcom

DM or @ at Twitter : @shalabhpandey

Think About It

Shalabh

Larry and Sergey

These guys are the stuff dreams are made of. They ruled the world before thirty and double handedly (single handedly won’t be an appropriate phrase right?) altered the online advertising space.

For this company, at one time, normal was ordinary.Excellent was not good enough. And Extraordinary was default.

Buying a private Jet matching Air Force one wasn’t good enough. These guys had permission from NASA to use its landing strip. Now that is something.

Yes it is Larry Page and Sergey Brin- the founders of that Dream factory called Google.

As I always used to say- It is tough to form a company that hires its own celebrity chef. ( Google hired the chef of the rock band ‘Grateful Dead” once). But it is tougher to form a company that makes news when their menu changes. Or sweeps the press when the chef leaves.

Author- Richard L. Brandt

No these are not the facts Richard Brandt’s boook : “Inside Larry & Sergey’s Brain” delves on. These are things dotcom mavens like me have professionally grown up experiencing.

Richard Brandt’s book is a different take on Google- and actually it is about it’s two young and talented founders from Stanford University- and what goes in their minds while deciding the future of not only their company, but decisions impacting the Internet itself.

The book hinges on the moral stance of the duo- and the “Don’t be evil” motto of Google.

Richard does succeed in painting a picture of the duo in your minds. They actually come across as aggressive, resolute (unyielding) and brilliant (obviously)- quite contrary to the warm smiling faces that one is used to seeing in pictures.

It is an easy read- one of the few books I finished in about 2 days- and a good read for anyone who is starting up- specially in the Internet industry.  These guys are icons and we needed to know what is happening in those sharp brains resting on the smiley faces.

Larry is the main strategist – with business acumen and practical drive, while Sergey is the primary technologist and idealist, with brilliant ideas and strong moral positions. But they work closely together- almost like complenentay halves of a single brain.

Many things struck me from the book-

• Like AdSense was not developed by Google. Why even the name “AdSense” was not by Google. And all the while I thought it was a nice name to match “AdWords’
• Like what the founders said on their hiring policies- they like someone with a “slight disdain for the impossible”. It struck me because I have been searching for a single line short but powerful explanation to the question people often ask me- What is Chasing The Storm about? Well, it is about “A slight disdain for the impossible”.
• Even Adwords might not have been an original idea. As a matter of fact, Google settled out of court with Overture with regards to a patents battle in 2004 in exchange of 2.7 million shares. But Google did fine tune and develop the product in a fantastic way.
• When Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo, Larry, Sergei and Eric Schmidt opposed the scenario- saying almost the same things- as I mentioned in this post of mine in May 2007 . (Being a bit pompous I know- but feel happy that the thinking is similar. So what- if one is writing a post in the middle of the night and the others are probably sipping martini on a private island?)
• OK, on that- another common thread- while most web watchers are betting on Augmented reality and brain scanning as the next thing on the Internet- I have often said one of the next big things (media wise) is probably Video- both on the web and digital rendering over the TV. Interactive TV with targeting and measurability rivaling the internet- and so on. Google has tied up with Echo Star- a company that makes cable set top boxes and is working towards  delivering a better system to achieve its goals
• Perhaps the best quote from the book: Entrepreneurship is a crime of passion. It requires motive, means and opportunity.
• The ratio of revenues per employee at $1 million each- is the highest in the technology world- Microsoft weighs at $700,000 Revenue per employee
  
• “Don’t be evil” is a phenomenally simple and yet powerful philosophy. Simple yet difficult to achieve. Simple yet difficult to live up with. And to me, it should be the mantra of every single person on earth.

There are too many things to mention from the book. At least more than a mere blog post can merit- for what it is worth.

Facts that I think went missing from the book:

• No mention of Sir Vincent Cerf- and what impact did he have in the shaping of the company or future goals. Richard talks about a whole host of people but leaves behind Cerf- popularly credited as the Father of the Internet, who is now the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. Google has a coup with the most respect respected brains- Sir Cerf, Eric Schmidt and Hal Varian- Chief Economist- whose writings we have read while in college. (Yes I graduated in Economics and sucked at it – coming from a science background- the only thing I liked was statistics I think)

• The second thing that I found conspicuous by its absence is the skipping  of click fraud as a topic. I mean if we have chapter or two dedicated to Google consenting to China censoring - we have totally missed a big huge debate in the digital media industry. An issue that every client spending their millions and every small business spending their hard strapped funds is worried of.

Of course Google is doing all it can (we hear it all the time- and see the credits in our ad words accounts), but if there ever was an issue- on transparency and Don’t be evil- it is probably click fraud. This book could have been a good excuse to tell the story on what is being done and how.

In case you happen to buy and read the book, let me know some discussion points. Thanks to Christy from Penguin Group for arranging to send this over.

Are you into Social Media Marketing? Want to go beyond Social Media overview and get your hands dirty with ‘on-ground’ hacks and processes?

“Building Facebook Fandom” is an eBook that might help you get an overview of what works inside the walled gardens of Facebook.

Afternote: Just got notified that It will be available in a few days- but you could register at the site now to receive it later.

Written by Ryan Lim of Blugrapes marketing, the ebook is about how to utilize Facebook to the maximum for marketing advantage. Of course, the ebook serves as a marketing material for their services- but I have always believed that giving something of value to your audience always works as a win win.

I had met Ryan earlier and he discussed about his eBook. The subject is topical- given the volume of conversations around this topic, and there is surely some interest from agency guys- media planners and account executives alike.

Another good thing is that some observations apply to all the social media platforms. The Facebook platform has its own nuances and restrictions. And for anyone attempting to undertake a marketing exercise, it would make a huge difference really understanding the medium.

The eBook is free (as I mentioned earlier, BluGrapes specialize around Facebook- so this also serves as marketing material for them- this is what I call germFeed) to download as pdf from this site

It is an easy read for those looking at harnessing the power of Social Media marketing (I call it Social Reference Marketing)- specially Facebook.

As a critic, I expected the book to be more visual (with more images/screenshots) and feel that it could have been much more impactful if the content delivery was through video. I have one such video demonstrating the nuances here.

But then again- this is short, handy and written in easy prose. So if you are someone concerned with utilizing FaceBook as a platform to build a community (a fan page or a group) or for reaching out to your TG (Social Ads), some tips can be quite useful.

Some handy tips pointers and my critique from the ebook (available here for download as a pdf):

• Ad fatigue: 2 weeks is a good time to refresh your Social Ads. After this, the ads might start getting fatigued (I would have loved to see some real life examples or case studies supporting this fact)
• The right threshold for viral?: To achieve the viral effect, scale itself is important. On Facebook, a 1000 member fan base could be the magic number before you start going really viral
• Social Proof: People are more likely to be a fan of your page if 4 of their friends are already fans of your page (no examples – but seems they have arrived at this figure using some of their previous campaign analysis)
• Day parting: Best timings for your status updates? Very interesting stuff from an operations perspective- though not with numbers to boot. This attempts to look at which is the time of the day that the users are most likely to receive your status message.

Enjoy!

Shalabh

PS: I am not related or affiliated to BluGrapes and this is not a incentivized plug. I am happy to receive and disseminate such information and material for all the readers, inspite of this being marketing material.

I am putting together a resources section on the site- and will hopefully have more such content on the site. Keep watching this space.

Well, before you get alarmed or all excited- this post is not going to be about how to get close to your secretary. Or as Nury Vittaci  puts it- “It is not about 64 positions in which you can screw your business rivals complete with diagrams”

This post is more than just a review of Nury Vittaci’s book- ” Kamasutra of Business- Management principles from Indian Classics”- it is to document what I read for my future citations.

One of those books with an extremely easy read, I would say it is a must read for all book lovers- to learn from the wisdom of the ancients- in an easy going way. It has some real eye opening facts about the relatively unknown amazing amazing facts, nuggets of wisdom from ancient India and the way the ancients paved the way for business management principles that are timeless.

I am not just stating the facts, but even depicting the era to demonstrate context. (BC= Before the birth of Christ; BCE= before current era – same as BC and CE= contemporary era; almost same as the concept of AD)

Though humanoids have been around for more than a million years, humans used tools since about a hundred thousand years- but it is only very recently that we have ‘advanced’ very fast- probably from around 5000 years back.

India in particular, the author (non Indian by the way) finds-had been quite advanced. Many ancient scriptures propagate scientific ideas close to what the scientists today believe. The Vedas for example, (the founding scriptures of Hinduism) were written about 1500-2000 years BC (about 40 centuries ago)- and cover some stuff that foxes scientists even now. For example, they talk about the concept and corelation between  time, space and matter- in a way that is recognized by the contemporary scientific world in only the modern era.

There is not only evidence of scientific genius (surgery was first done in India- including plastic surgery, mathematics got the zero from India- making computer science possible with binary system, astronomical sciences with complete use of logarithmic tables complete with latitude and longitudes, the very mathematical astrological sciences etc. And yes- they did not consider Pluto to be a planet either)- from tens of centuries ago- but even that of thought leadership, economics, society and intellectual gems. One of the cradle of civilizations, there is evidence that first written language might have developed there itself. One of the oldest pieces of writing in existence come from the Indus Valley civilization – still undeciphered and about 5,500 years old.

Though examples from the book cover the implications of what was written or done centuries ago- in today’s business environment, I would limit this article on some key ancient anecdotes and nuggets.

Consider this- did you know:

• The Kamasutra is not a book of sex. As it is widely believed to be. As a matter of fact, all copies of the book in west contain only 20% of the actual matter in KamaSutra. Actually less than 20% of the book is about sex!
• The man who wrote Kamasutra (Vatsyayana) was celibate- a young man not married. Ever. A  sage and a researcher- Most of his work is a compilation of works from other ancient sages- with observations from Vatsyayana. This happened about 16 centuries ago!
• World’s first management guru was a sage scholar from India (Chanakya-around 350 BCE) who used his techniques to build an empire bigger than Western Europe
• Traders in Ancient India built an Atlantis like lost city. It had traffic jams, high technology and Credit Cards! It even exported city infrastructure details to far away countries. And it is not completely lost.
• This city (Harappa/Mohenjodaro) probably invented the first franchise model- where know how and processes were exported to various countries to set up franchisee like model. A la Starbucks and McDonalds. Oh and we are talking about 4300 to 5000 years back!

Kamasutra: The Kamasutra is probably the most misunderstood book of all times. More than sex, it talks about how to live life (work life balance if you may) and propounds that

Life balance=Kama(Sensual Pleasure)+Artha (material wealth/business/profession)+Dharma (virtue)

OK I am simplifying things. But for mere mortals like me, this is cool enough.

Source: Indiabuzzing.com

Chanakya: The genius scholar who was treated badly by his (incapable) king ‘Nanda’ and the king’s psychophants is fired. He vows to avenge. And does so ultimately- creating a huge empire in association with Chandragupta Maurya- a solid CEO if you may- who led from the front and rose from virtually nothing. In doing so, he also authors many awesome management books- notably Arthashastra- the book on economics, polity and statecraft.

Ashoka: Widely popular as Ashoka the Great- his work is inscribed on the Indian Flag and currencies (the wheel and the lion with 4 heads signifying the light of wisdom is travelling to all 4 corners). He was the emperor who brought the most of India under one leadership, a ferocious warrior turned monk who sent his kids to as far as Sri Lanka to preach no-violence and dhamma (his philosophy from a mix of Budhism and Jainism)- and the first blogger ever in the history of the world.

Yes I said Blogger. His blog posts were not on an easy publish CMS like wordpress and distributed through aggregators though. They were dictated on a regular basis via an oral commentary- inscribed in stone- and affixed in various parts of India- on the thoughts of an emperor to the people. (Commenting was not possible as you could imagine- but more recently people would have inscribed spam- “Raju loves Lata” types- Stone Akismet anyone?)

Considering he was the grandson of Chandragupta- we are probably talking about 23 centuries ago (270 BC). It was then he established such concepts like Animal Welfare (!), peace, environmentalism and established a concept that even modern day America is struggling to find. An efficient healthcare system- where taxpayers were assured treatment- and payments were taken as per standards of living!!

One of his blog posts (Edicts- the twelfth rock letter) mentions the importance of religious tolerance.

These concepts were thousands of years ahead of their time.

And after all these things, one cannot but feel saddened by the lost significance of such great works, thought leadership and intellectual prowesses lost by the onslaught of foreign invasion and colonizations- most of whom were interested in plundering their colonies to the stone age.

Well- here’s the news- they are still surviving and kicking ass. Big time.

Cheers

Shalabh

(twitter.com/shalabhpandey)

thumbnail courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dido/116042215/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Chris Anderson delivering  a talk on the theme of his latest book ‘Free’ courtsey ZDNet.

Chris Anderson, author of “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” discusses how different companies use the free-to-premium, or freemium model to not only make money, but often keep customers at a higher rate than fully paid services. There are many economies–ones of status, time, information and more–and the trick is to get people to trade their money for one of them

I will probably post on his most famous and of course more ground breaking book ‘The Long Tail’ in some time.

Meanwhile, you can follow the links and maybe follow an excellent interview by Hugh McLeod of GapingVoid.

Below is the video documentation of one of the very popular talks by Seth Godin (at the business of software conference in 2008). I haven’t attended the presentation and so can’t ask him direct questions. No surprises there- I am neither a software developer, nor do I have thousands of dollars to get enlightened in person. But I raise my hands here – get into the blog time machine and ask: “Mr Seth Godin, Sir- I have some questions.”

He talks about how marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department and throughout, he emphasizes that it is the ‘remarkability’ of the product/offering that what matters the most.

A mix of some great and some obvious points in the expected Seth Godin style- funny pictures and plenty of examples. The overall presentation is quite a food for thought, but I have some doubts. I fear saying “disagreements”, because I don’t have an iota of expertise, experience, clout or personality that Mr Godin has.

Neverthless for the sake of discussion, I raise my hands. That might be because I am looking at it from the eyes of buisiness exec and a marketing fan. To me, what is being elucidated in the presentation is the age old concept of Unique Value Proposition, finding and exploiting gaps in the market and developing products with a potential to sell.

Having said that, there are some gems in the conversation that Mr Godin is having.

He says everyone is in the same business. The business of spreading ideas. No matter what you are doing or what function you are in to- you are basically spreading ideas. Great thought and point taken.

He suggests that today marketing needs to be built into the product. Products need to have the capacity to spread itself.

He also says that most media and marketers have been subjecting the audience into a barrage of interruption advertising which leads to clutter and encourages production of average products for average people.

• Interruption marketing: Firstly, I have always thought this ‘interruption marketing’ thing is a bit exaggerated in the way it is told- Remember my specialty is digital engagement marketing- and so it favors me if I substantiate that most other mediums are Interruption led (and hence obsolete). But I have not been very convinced. At the core- even if at theory level, the art of advertising/marketing has great depth and has its own proven impact on business and consumer behavior. It is altogether a different thing that most ad guys do not do it that way.

• Purple cow: The philosophy for success that he elucidates  is- be a purple cow. You know this one. Focus on making your product remarkably different from others. (Unique Value proposition/differentiation?). He goes on to talk about the importance of weaving marketing into the product itself. So what we know of marketing (advertising/Public Relations actually) is not so important.

I always argued that business is marketing. Yes, if your product is truly ‘remarkable’ – the product will likely sell on its own. Even then, the job of marketing does not become redundant. For even the most imaginative domino arrangement- needs an initial thrust to continue the display.

• Also if being remarkable was the only thing important- the HPs, Dells, Lenovos, Acers of the world should be dead by now. So would all the FMCGs.
• What I mean to say is- what do you do when you are in a business that is highly commoditized/standardized, customer service and other factors like retailing distribution are difficult to change remarkably. The art of Brand Management then becomes insignificant and most other time tested marketing- redundant.
• In such cases, the brand becomes the differentiator- which heightens the importance of marketing

Mr Godin himself suggests similarly with a few examples.

A remarkable product was created in 1913- sliced bread. But it was a failure- until some 20 years later- another brand came along and made a huge success out of it. Why? Apparently they MARKETED the product well. The remarkable thing in this example then becomes marketing and not the product itself. And even this is quite simplistic an assumption. How about existing infrastructure, consumer behavior, retailing, storage and distribution that might have evolved in 20 years? Almost a generation gap!

I think being remarkable is a very simplistic criterion. It does not give any solutions and is a bit vague.

The word ‘remarkable’ means a myriad of things. It can then mean anything actually. A good product, a differentiated product,  great marketing,  anything. So what exactly is remarkable then?

My thinking is – Remarkability is important, but nothing is important than an idea whose time has come.

To substantiate with an example- I prophesize that virtual worlds will become widely successful in 10 years from now. It is a remarkable (at least different) product and some remarkable marketing around it. It is an idea worth spreading. Or at least was when it was launched a few years ago. Right? Then why did it not become a widespread success? Because IMO remarkability isn’t as important as an idea whose time has come. Culturally, commercially and  infrastructure wise. That’s why.

There are many many examples. 3D content anyone? Was started about 20 years back maybe. Was it remarkable then? Of course it was. It was a story worth telling. Why did it not succeed then? The same issues as I mentioned earlier. Again I prophesize that 3D content will be a potent force- within 5 years from now. Not just in movies but even in home media including gaming content. But not before the right time and the right market.

If you have an offering whose time has come- you will succeed even if it is not remarkable. If it is remarkable as well, the markets will bow in front of you.

• Meatball Sundae: Another good analogy is the ‘Meatball sundae’ concept. Because products are made that are suited for the masses- they end up being ‘meatballs’- standard and assembly line. OK Agreed. This also implies that all operators in the market need to be unique.

But If every product is Unique, no one is Unique. If every cow is of a different color, there is no uniqueness in a purple cow.

And this is where Marketing becomes more important. In any category, there is enough market for multiple operators- till the elasticity of profitability sets in. There are examples in every category that support this theory. Marketing/advertising is a necessary evil in most cases. As a matter of fact, it might be the most important contributing factor to success.

Seth then rightly explains that remarkable does not mean product innovation only, but even things like ‘customer service’ can make you remarkable.

He also mentions that the Internet can go a long way in making your offerings remarkable because it gives unparalleled interaction with the customer and the company.

Basically Give people something to talk about.

This is right- but I think the often told tale of Zappos has brilliant public relations at the back of it- even if they had some kick ass customer service. Heightened in the recent years that eventually led to their seemingly ultimate goal of getting sold.

• The long tail and the democracy of product availability:

He mentions that if you give people an opportunity to make a choice, they will choose the most remarkable product. I beg to differ. Fundamentally because people do not know what they want.

How many times have you seen an unremarkable product sell better than others- or a market of similar product where one sells off better than the others?

Of course then again, he says storytelling is important- more important than anything. I couldn’t agree more – and have believed in this since ages.

But then the same argument holds for a ‘standardized’ or cluttered product. If I can weave a story around that product, will the product sell or create buzz? I think yes. Recent examples- Skittles, Burger King, Australian tourism, etc.

Another long post. But I think what was said in the presentation was a lot of marketing 101.

Yet Mr Godin succeeds in making a great impact and reaching out to his audience- both online and offline. This is what being remarkable is. Maybe.

(Twitter @shalabhpandey)

Got my hands on this book- aptly called The Idea Book . Probably my first book review on ChasingTheStorm and an apt way to start a category considering this blog is also about Ideas and memes. Also, I am pleasantly surprised at the fact that I already practice a lot that is there in the book. Starting with documenting my ideas in a notebook- which has been a habit since childhood.

I do read a lot of books- albeit with my fragmented attention span- I usually take more time than others to finish them. And sometimes I read more than one book at a time. Will soon start listening to ebooks heavily- is what my guess is- they are more portable and handy while traveling. That is after I decide on which portable device to buy for that purpose.

The Idea Book is exactly that- a book on inspiring ideas and anecdotal evidences. You can visit the official page here.

Written by Fredrik Haren of Interesting.org and generously sent to me by Bastian Doehling- the book’s tagline says it all-

150 pages about ideas and 150 empty pages to write your own ideas.

The book is about being inspired and encourages you to write down your ideas. Inside the book.

Now one thing that is great about this book is – you don’t need to start it and finish it at one go. It works even if continuity is not maintained. Because it does not read like a story.

Read it, get inspired- jot down thoughts and do it all over again.

If you want to have a flavor of the book, a preview is available here.

Some of my favorite quotes/anecdotes from the book:

• Eat this: Edison had an Idea quota. A minor invention every 10 days and a major invention every 6 months!
• Have the courage to invent new words in order to invent new ideas. Now this is something that comes intrinsically to me. Read more of this blog to know what words have I invented
• High technology obeys the iron law of revolution. The more you change. you have to be willing to accept the fact that in this game the rules keep changing. (Bill Joy): So true of the industry I represent.
• Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point however, is to change it. (Marx): ChasingTheStorm?
• I’m sure you have ‘intelligent’ people in your companies. The kinds that shoot down ideas and enthusiasm effectively by pointing what would not work. 2 quotes:
  • Every Fool can see what is wrong. See what is good in it (Churchill)
  • Imagination is more important than knowledge. (Einstein)
• There is a natural opposition to anything they havent thought of themselves (Barnes Walles; Page 97; The Idea book)
• If you don’t tell me how tall your house is, I’ll beat you to death with my barometer… (Ask me about this story)
• Everything that can be invented- has been invented (1899); Heavier than air flying machines are impossible (1895)
• Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over…(1931, Lincoln Steffens): In contrast to the previous quote, this is so true of the new world order that beckons us post the downturn
  

And many many more such gems. Already spent enough time and hopefully inspired you a bit in the process.

Now my part on suggestions for the book. Some thoughts on how could the book be more innovative:

• The book has inspiration and pages to jot down ideas. But what is missing- is a writing instrument. What would be really cool is -an innovative pen with the book- maybe one hanging with the bookmark thread. People end up reading books while traveling and- in case you get inspired, you need to have that pen around.

• Another more innovative way could be- have a carbon paper over each empty page- so you don’t even need a pen or pencil- any object (including finger tips!) would do for a quick jot down of ideas in that moment of inspiration. Very useful for those who get ideas in the bathroom

• Also, from a user experience perspective- I think the empty pages could be clubbed together. Helps in better continuity of ideas if they overflow from one page to the other and dives into the reader psychology. As of now each article is followed by a few empty pages- which makes it looks like there is an ‘exercise’ to do after each chapter in a text book (though it is not so)

They have a contest on the site- where people could submit photos with the book- and there are prizes to be won every week .

Meanwhile, I leave you with this TED talk as an apt way to end this post. Enjoy!

And let me know if you need some inspiring quotations. I am armed.

Cheers

Shalabh (twitter.com/shalabhpandey)

Note: The link to buy from Amazon has my Associates ID