One of the things that have been holding my attention for quiet a while now is innovation in healthcare, and what a pleasant surprise to discover Prof. Vijay Govindarajan on HBR, where he talks about his idea of reverse innovation. Prof. Govindarajan was kind enough to send me a copy of his book for review and I must say I was blown by it. I have read quiet extensively on innovation, but almost none of the authors I have read so far give a structured, rational, and scientific approach to implementing of innovation. In his book The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge he has given us a great field guide on how to go about ensuring that the innovative idea doesn’t die on the drawing board. I will be posting a detailed review later, but to get an idea of what the book is like you can read his latest post on HBR 10 Tips for Creating Distinct-but-Linked Innovation Groups.
Related to, but not inspired by his idea of reverse innovation is this initiative by Open Source House, a team that conducted a competition for an open source house based on eight design principles. Interestingly prof. VG and Christian sarkar recently wrote about a 300 dollar home. His design wont win any competitions in its present form, but its a stimulant and so are the comments.
Not a co incidence, but I also managed to lay my hands on the classic The Art of Innovation by tom kelley of IDEO. as reputed, its an amazing read and reads like a lovely travelogue of a creative journey fueled by innovation.
I dont think I have said this before, but I LOVE Artemis fowl, who cares that its supposed to be teenage fiction. And so I was as delighted to come across the latest book The Atlantis Complex. it is written in the usual pan-novel humor style that Eoin Colfer is loved for. The story is that
Artemis is suffering from Atlantis Complex, a psychosis common among guilt-ridden fairies – not humans – and most likely triggered by Artemis’s dabbling with fairy magic. Symptoms include obsessive-compulsive behavior, paranoia, multiple personality disorder and, in extreme cases, embarrassing professions of love to a certain feisty LEPrecon fairy.
Unfortunately, (obviously) Atlantis Complex has struck at the worst possible time, a badass fairy is going to destroy the REAL Atlantis (don’t you love the coincidences and puns?).
While i loved the book, it is worrying that over the years Artemis is gradually becoming less and less devious, and I hope Mr. Colfer doesn’t forget that we love Artemis because of his dark side.The lone genius crusader with a borderline psychotic personality and the right tinge of pink is what made this teen criminal mastermind special. So Mr.Colfer don’t forget the criminal part of “criminal mastermind”, we cant have Fowl turn chicken can we?
I am yet to read Dawkin’s God Delusion, so I will not say too much about this one, but reading “The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine” by Alister McGrath was an enlightening experience. while the book was more of a brief review of Dawkin’s book, it made me realize that I want to read both Dawkin’s book and McGrath’s full length and better book on the topic.
Finally, now I am reading Decoding Intolerance: Riots And The Emergence of Terrorism In India by PK Lahiri. I have only started reading the book, which documents the history, mechanism and possible solutions to the bloody wars that are called religious riots, but it seems like a good read.
To finish of with, here is some steampunk-esq medical prosthesis goodness for you from the late 1800s.
]. I dream of a day when my parents will accept me and realize that I still am the same person. I dream of a small house with a little garden and a labrador named Phoebe. The only difference is that we’ll get ‘His and His’ towels for Christmas.
