Borrowing Brilliance
The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas
By: David Kord Murray
Published: September 2009
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
ISBN 9781592404780
Publisher: Gotham Books/Penguin
"In order to create, first you have to copy", writes entrepreneur and innovator David Kord Murray in his provocative and insightful book Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas. The author turns the concepts of original ideas and creative thinking on their heads, and demonstrates that ideas are borrowed from others, and turned into new innovations. David Murray provides numerous examples of innovations, that were borrowed by famous people from other innovators and improved upon in some way. He also describes a practical process for borrowing brilliance as a creative technique.
David Murray describes a six step process in innovation, that includes a heavy emphasis on seeking out existing ideas and solutions, and applying them to the problem. Yo begin the process, the author believes the problem must be clearly defined. Without an understanding of the problem, then a solution will not be forthcoming. The second step, once the problem has been determined, is to seek out similar problems, and examine their various solutions. Once discovered, the third step involves taking the existing ideas and combining, connecting, or changing them in some way. When completing these initial three stages, the innovator is able to behave like a Renaissance master, and improve upon an reinterpret already existing ideas.
David Kord Murray (photo left) recognizes that the first three steps in problem solving only define the problem, and examine some already existing solutions. At this point, the author believes a more subconscious awareness begins, as the ideas and the problem enter a process of fusion. The fourth step is letting the ideas begin to take root and develop in an organic manner. The fifth step involves examining the strengths and weaknesses of the many possible solutions. At this point, another truly creative step begins, as the existing concepts and their variations are combined and connected, while the weaker parts are removed and the better solutions strengthened into a viable, and useful innovative solution.
For me, the power of the book is the rediscovery of the ancient perception of innovation, that involved taking previous ideas and improving upon them in new and exciting ways. David Kord Murray reveals many powerful insights into the creative thinking process, including the deep secret that most of the well known great ideas were borrowed from previously existing concepts. He brings the process of creative thinking out into the open, and gives it a transparency and honest approach that removes the mystery surrounding innovation. He dispels the myth that creative ability is inborn, and offers clear evidence that creative thinking is a learned skill. The author also demonstrates how ideas from one field can be transferred effectively to another area entirely, making the system of borrowing brilliance even more powerful.
I highly recommend the practical and often contrarian book Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas by David Kord Murray, to anyone seeking a practical guide to innovative problem solving that removes the mystery from the process. Discovering as the author did, that many famous solutions to problems were themselves adapted from previous concepts, is liberating to a person seeking creative ideas. Knowing that rethinking an existing concept is a viable technique to problem solving, removes the self doubt that many potential innovators ogten feel, when confronted by a challenge.
Read the important and business changing book Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas by David Lord Murray, and discover for yourself how to reinvent and rediscover existing ideas, and apply them to problems where they were least expected. By redefining both the problem, and the borrowed ideas, the process of innovation and creative thinking is ignited and powerful solutions will be the important result.
