Recently I wrote about how I see a gap between how I view innovation and how it is generally being discussed here in the Netherlands. I also mentioned I am currently reading up on innovation and I thought I’d share some of my reading list with you.
It was Edna Pasher who pointed me to Christensen when we met at KM Europe 2003, and as a result of that I read Innovator’s Dilemma and after that Innovator’s Solution. I am currently rereading Innovator’s Solution while making a summary and model out of it. I read a number of articles lauding this book and saying it was a good guide for action, but I think it isn’t. There are loads of tips and motivations for action in it, but there is no overview to actually use when you start to act. So I set out to write that summary, as I could not find one on the net.

Next to that Carla Verwijs recently pointed me to a reading list of books for 2006 of the Innovation Book Club, that I took as a starting point.
So I ordered the first four titles in the list, and they are now on my bed side table for reading:

• Leader’s Guide to Storytelling by Stephen Denning
• How Breakthroughs Happen by Andrew Hargadon
• Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
• Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman

I’ll try and discuss these books as I finish them.