This weekend I finished the audiobook version of The 10 Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley of IDEO. (Amazon link.) Apparently, my timing couldn’t have been better. Recent issues of BusinessWeek, Fast Company and Business 2.0 have all featured cover stories on innovation. Wired magazine runs an annual rating of the most innovative companies. Recently, someone really smart said that innovation is a requirement at any company that plans on surviving the next decade.

Kelley breaks down different personas that help companies innovate:

• The Anthropologist
• The Experimenter
• The Cross-Pollinator
• The Hurdler
• The Collaborator
• The Director
• The Experience Architect
• The Set Designer
• The Storyteller
• The Caregiver

You can learn more about these 10 personas at the obligatory book Web site.

I got the most out of this book by listening to the stories told about different businesses and industries and trying to figure out how I could apply them to my own business. As even casual readers to this blog know, flyte just celebrated our 10th anniversary in business. (Regular readers, on the other hand, are probably sick of hearing about it and wish I would move on. Point taken.) Nothing gives me greater pause than realizing that in our (or any) industry, things can change on a dime. Who would have thought a few years back that Microsoft would be so vulnerable, or that Apple would be resurgent, but that these two events weren’t necessarily related?

The book is at it’s best when telling stories, whether it’s the history of how 3M invented masking tape against it’s better judgment, or an IDEO staffer teaching Axl Rose to drive a race car. It can be truly inspirational at points like that.

Things are changing quickly, and no matter what business you’re in, change can happen overnight. This book can help you keep on looking for fresh, innovative approaches for your business success.

Rich Brooks
Storyteller