NOVEL SOLUTIONS


Breaking Down Innovation Casting Scale


Shea Gibbs, Senior Editor


borrowing…they’ll call you a creative genius,” he writes in his new book. Fortunately, from his cyni-


D


avid Kord Mur- ray is a cynic. To wit: “If you take someone’s idea, but then disguise this


So, what’s so cynical about


cism spring all good things in Borrowing Brilliance, including its central concept, fast-paced readability and likeable protagonist. The like- able protagonist is, of course, Murray himself. After all, the self-made (and self-destroyed) entrepreneur and former “head of innovation” for Intuit, maker of TurboTax, would have it no other way than to star in his own bestselling business book. But despite being classifi ed as such on the major booklists,


Relevance to Metalcasters Technical Diffi culty Self-Help Fluff Bottom Line


is Borrowing Brilliance truly a “business book”? It’s diffi cult to tell at times. The book is equal parts cultural critique (a la Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point or Outliers) and adventure story (as we follow Murray through the heights of his thrill-seeking love of extreme sports or the lows of his escape-seeking love of vodka and cranberry cocktails). In the end though, there are practical business lessons to be


learned from Borrowing Brilliance, whatever its classifi cation. In the book, Murray maps out a step-by-step method of increasing your ability to think creatively and develop innovation for your company. He offers the following six steps: 1. Defi ning—Defi ne the problem you’re trying to solve. 2. Borrowing—Borrow ideas from places with a similar problem.


3. Combining—Connect and combine these borrowed ideas.


4. Incubating—Allow the combinations to incubate into a solution.


5. Judging—Identify the strength and weakness of the solution.


6. Enhancing—Eliminate the weak points while enhanc- ing the strong ones. “The goal of this book is to


take the creative process out of the shadows of the subcon- scious mind and bring it into the conscious,” Murray writes.


42


this process? Not only does Murray believe he can spell out the complex process of creativ- ity, he calls into question the very nature of creativity itself. “Ideas—not just some of


them but all of them—are constructed out of other ideas,” he writes. What’s more, Murray ex-


plains this notion that all ideas are reformed versions of old ideas in such great detail that you will quickly come to fi nd


the premise to be obvious—self-explanatory even. After all, we all borrow and mutate ideas used by other businesses and make them our own. Indeed, you might be left asking yourself if this classifi ca-


tion of creativity is so obvious as not to be useful. Concepts like these—conscious reiterations of what happens subcon- sciously for some—need to be spelled out carefully to make them have any meaning. But spell them out carefully, Murray does. Even the incuba-


tion stage of his process, during which all of the combinations of ideas you have stolen have a chance to roll around in your subconscious, is mapped out in concrete terms. “Write the problem out,” he says. “Describe the borrowed


Metalcaster’s Translation As product life cycles be-


come shorter and businesses are forced to reinvent them- selves and their business mod- els, this reliance on employee innovation becomes more important. So, you need to learn how to take ideas from the people around you. Ide- ation is a collaborative effort. Translation: Innovation


comes from identifying prob- lems and combining solutions borrowed from other places.


Your casting facility employees are perfect sources of both. Trust them to help your company solve problems creatively.


ideas. And start making metaphorical combinations. Then periodically review what you’ve written. Say it aloud, Read it in the morning and in the evening before you go to bed.” Occasionally during Borrowing Brilliance, it feels as if Mur- ray underestimates his read- ers’ (and his) intelligence. As with so many books that break down a common way in which the mind works without thinking about it, using this process for innova- tion may not be a practical way to proceed, particularly with small problems. However, with a fl air for


the dramatic and examples from his own (and others’) experiences, Murray makes a compelling case that this is the way you should proceed. He even goes so far as to admit stealing an idea from America Online to prove his point.


MC MODERN CASTING / September 2010


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