"Brilliant Business Ideas" is a manual for learning extremely powerful techniques that enable readers to come up with new business ideas in minutes and use their newfound creativity to become a better manager or boss.

With budgets being cut and competition fierce, thinking creatively in business has never been so important. Brilliant Business Creativity is an entertaining guide to one of the most important business topics today. A hands-on skills set book, you’ll discover all the techniques you need to be creative. It highlights how creativity is taking shape in the business world and approaches the topic from both a macro and micro level; how you can get your organisation to be more creative, and how you can be creative yourself. It’s an ideal first step into the world of creativity for all those who thought creativity belonged to a creative elite – the reality is that everyone is creative. BRILLIANT FEATURES: • Lessons in finding inspiration. • The ten most creative things that have ever happened in business. • The ten most creative products in business. • How to think, act and talk creatively. Nominated for CMI Management Book of the Year 2010 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship category

In a book poised to become the bible of innovation, a renowned creativity expert reveals the key to the creative process-"borrowing". As a former aerospace scientist, Fortune 500 executive, chief innovation officer, inventor, and software entrepreneur, David Kord Murray has made a living by coming up with innovative ideas. In Borrowing Brilliance he shows readers how new ideas are merely the combination of existing ones by presenting a simple six-step process that anyone can use to build business innovation: ?Defining-Define the problem you're trying to solve. ?Borrowing-Borrow ideas from places with a similar problem. ?Combining-Connect and combine these borrowed ideas. ?Incubating-Allow the combinations to incubate into a solution. ?Judging-Identify the strength and weakness of the solution. ?Enhancing-Eliminate weak points while enhancing strong ones. Each chapter features real-life examples of brilliant borrowers, including profiles of Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the Google guys), George Lucas, Steve Jobs, and other creative thinkers. Murray used these methods to re-create his own career and he shows readers how to harness them to find creative solutions.

Many of us assume that our creative process is beyond our ability to influence, and pay attention to it only when it isn't working properly. For the most part, we go about our daily tasks and everything just "works." Until it doesn't. Adding to this lack of understanding is the rapidly accelerating pace of work. Each day we are face escalating expectations and a continual squeeze to do more with less. We are asked to produce an ever-increasing amount of brilliance in an ever-shrinking amount of time. There is an unspoken (or spoken!) expectation that we'll be accessible 24/7, and as a result we frequently feel like we're "always on." Now business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to unleash your creative potential. Whether you're a creative by trade or an "accidental creative," this book will help you quickly and effectively integrate new ideas into your daily life.

When BIC, manufacturer of disposable ballpoint pens, wanted to grow, it looked for an idea beyond introducing new sizes and ink colors. Someone suggested lighters. LIGHTERS? With an idea that seemed crazy at first, that bright executive, instead of seeing BIC as a pen company—a business in the PEN “box”—figured out that there was growth to be found in the DISPOSABLE “box.” And he was right. Now there are disposable BIC lighters, razors, even phones. The company opened its door to a host of opportunities. IT INVENTED A NEW BOX. Your business can, too. And simply thinking “out of the box” is not the answer. True ingenuity needs structure, hard analysis, and bold brainstorming. It needs to start THINKING IN NEW BOXES —a revolutionary process for sustainable creativity from two strategic innovation experts from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). To make sense of the world, we all rely on assumptions, on models—on what Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny call “boxes.” If we are unaware of our boxes, they can blind us to risks and opportunities. This innovative book challenges everything you thought you knew about business creativity by breaking creativity down into five steps: • Doubt everything. Challenge your current perspectives. • Probe the possible. Explore options around you. • Diverge. Generate many new and exciting ideas, even if they seem absurd. • Converge. Evaluate and select the ideas that will drive breakthrough results. • Reevaluate. Relentlessly. No idea is a good idea forever. And did we mention Reevaluate? Relentlessly. Creativity is paramount if you are to thrive in a time of accelerating change. Replete with practical and potent creativity tools, and featuring fascinating case studies from BIC to Ford to Trader Joe’s, Thinking in New Boxes will help you and your company overcome missed opportunities and stay ahead of the curve. This book isn’t a simpleminded checklist. This is Thinking in New Boxes. And it will be fun. (We promise.) Praise for Thinking in New Boxes “Excellent . . . While focusing on business creativity, the principles in this book apply anywhere change is needed and will be of interest to anyone seeking to reinvent herself.”—Blogcritics “Thinking in New Boxes is a five-step guide that leverages the authors’ deep understanding of human nature to enable readers to overcome their limitations and both imagine and create their own futures. This book is a must-read for people living and working in today’s competitive environment.”—Ray O. Johnson, Ph.D., chief technology officer, Lockheed Martin “Thinking In New Boxes discusses what I believe to be one of the fundamental shifts all companies/brands need to be thinking about: how to think creatively, in order to innovate and differentiate our brands. We need to thrive and lead in a world of accelerating change and this book challenges us to even greater creativity in our thinking. One of the best business books I’ve read in a long time.”—Jennifer Fox, CEO, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts “As impressive as teaching new tricks to old dogs, Thinking in New Boxes is both inspirational and practical—a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to sharpening one’s wits in order to harness creativity in the workplace.”—Peter Gelb, general manager, Metropolitan Opera

Axiom Business Book Award Winner in Entrepreneurship Category Learn to make creativity work for your career. Anyone, regardless of who you are or what you do, can cultivate the habits, actions, and attitudes that inspire creativity and innovation. There has never been a more crucial time than now to develop your creativity and your ability to innovate. Coming up with original ideas of value is today’s most precious skill. How Creativity Rules the World shows that, despite contrary beliefs, creativity can be taught and learned by anyone. Creativity is an inexhaustible resource that is the key to thriving in the business world and beyond. This timeless guide promises to make the creative process of successful seven-figure artists and billion-dollar entrepreneurs—as well as Maria’s own—accessible and actionable for you to take the power of their ideas to the next level. In How Creativity Rules the World, you will learn how to: Overcome limiting thoughts and dispel myths about creativity. Unleash creativity through concrete data, historical passages, and examples of modern entrepreneurship. Develop timeless habits, principles, and tools that worked six centuries ago and continue to work today. Employ creativity in an everyday context to produce extraordinary results. With revealing studies and stories spanning business and art, this book is a deep dive into history, culture, psychology, science, and entrepreneurship; analyzing the elements used by some of the most creative minds today and throughout the last 600 years. Contemporary art curator and founder of The Groove, Maria Brito discovered the power of creativity when she transitioned from being an unhappy Harvard-trained corporate lawyer to a thriving entrepreneur and innovator in the art world. After applying the principles in How Creativity Rules the World to her own business, Maria started teaching them to hundreds of people, ranging from entrepreneurs to artists to CEOs. Proven by her students’ creative successes, Maria will guide you to strike gold with your ideas as well.

____________________________ We can all be more creative. John Cleese shows us how. Creativity is usually regarded as a mysterious, rare gift that only a few possess. John Cleese begs to differ, and in this short, immensely practical and often very amusing guide he shows it's a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, he shares his insights into the nature of the creative process, and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. ____________________________ 'Humorous and practical ... Whether you're hoping to write a novel or paint a masterpiece, you're sure to feel inspired' OK Magazine 'His candor is endearing ... An upbeat guide to the creative process' Kirkus 'A jovial romp ... Cleese fans will enjoy, and writers and other artists will breeze through, picking up a few nuggets of wisdom along the way' The Festival Review 'A sincere and thoughtful guide to creativity, and a very useful book' Graham Norton 'Wise words on the serious business of being silly' Sunday Business Post

Discusses such camera and non-camera careers as fine art photographer, dealer, and teacher and includes an interview with a practitioner in each field.

It's time to let the CATS out of the bag . . . Curiosity might have killed the proverbial cat, but without it very real achievements would never occur. With this book as your guide, you’ll learn how to spark your innate curiosity, pounce on problems in ways you never imagined, and enjoy greater success and satisfaction at work—and in your personal life. Playful, profound, and positively upbeat, CATS provides what you need to tap into your power of innovation—and then unleash it in every member of your organization. While most business thinkers view this challenge from the top down, Stephen Lundin sees the subject from a CAT's-eye view, explaining how to get every employee--no matter what level--to think and act in innovative ways. Inside, he examines the four challenges to innovation and offers practical measures aimed at conquering them. You'll learn how to: Be brave ('fraidy cats never innovate) Stop being “normal” (make your own rules!) Embrace failure (it's the only way to learn) Foster creativity (don't be a control freak) Lundin then describes the Nine Lives of Innovation, each of which is a step toward realizing your inner CAT and becoming a fully contributing member of an innovative organization. Prowling inside every employee is a questioner, a creator, an innovator--claws out and ready to pounce. Become a CAT and you may fi nd yourself springing on ideas in a way that surprises you—and everyone around you.