Ideas without execution are a hobby and I’m not in the hobby business. ~Phil McKinney
Innovating is the practice of executing on ideas. It’s also a discipline I’ve been studying most of my life. That’s why I was so excited to read Luis Perez-Brava‘s book Innovating: A Doer’s Manifesto for Starting from a Hunch, Prototyping Problems, Scaling Up, and Learning to Be Productively Wrong. I’m happy to report that I was not let down!
In Innovating, Luis humbly and graciously doles out gobs of practical, pragmatic advice for how to do just what the title claims. He never lays down a single rule, instead he acknowledges the uncertain nature of innovation and dutifully describes his process. The thinking, and the many examples, provide more authority and insight than any simple set of rules could. I found many of the best parts of my own process explained more clearly than I ever could, along with fantastic new insights and context. This “Doer’s Manifesto” is also a great How-To Guide, it’s a How-To Manifesto – equal measure information and inspiration.
Innovating, Illustrated
As I “read” the audiobook, my mind’s eye kept trying to fit all the pieces together. How does one grasp the entirety of a non-liner process? With lots of U-turn arrows, of course!
So just after midnight about a week ago, I was thinking about this again, and I doodled a kind of a flow chart. This was only a rough brain dump but I really liked it. I felt like it captured the core of Luis’ approach in a very digestible nugget. Fast forward to today and I drew up a more polished version of my little diagram. Now I want to know if it makes sense to anyone other than me? If I’m lucky maybe I can even get Dr. Perez-Breva’s opinion on it!
As I often do (to my partner’s dismay) I bought the hardcover after loving the audiobook. That means I’ve now seen the awesome illustrations within the book. While mine is not nearly as beautiful as those, I do still like it as a glimpse-able reference. I believe it will help me more readily remember the wisdom Luis was kind enough to share. I hope you find it useful as well.
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