Editorial Review:
Michael Gelb, bestselling author of How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, and Sarah Miller Caldicott, translate the genius of Edison into a revolutionary new success system for innovation.
Thomas Edison is the greatest innovator in American history. Edison’s focus on practical accomplishment set the stage for America’s global leadership in innovation. Now, for the first time ever, Innovate Like Edison translates the best practices of this supreme American inventor into contemporary terms to help today’s leaders harness their own innovative potential.
With their unique insight and expertise, Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott introduce a carefully researched, easy-to-apply system of five success secrets inspired by the creative methods of Edison himself. Presented in a step-by-step fashion, Innovate Like Edison provides the tools and strategies you need to compete and win in the business world and in everyday life. Whether you’re an amateur or an executive, Innovate Like Edison is an indispensable tool that will enable you to revamp and revitalize your own creative genius and thrive in today’s culture of innovation.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
For a book about innovation, this is distinctly unoriginal  2008-10-29
Edison was America's most prolific inventor whose creations were not just novel and commercially successful but created entire new industries including electric light and power, sound recording, motion pictures and industrial cement and concrete manufacture. He left an enormous legacy in the form of detailed laboratory notebooks, correspondence and legal testimony that documented the way he created these inventions and the commercial enterprises that grew out of them. Gelb is described in the book as "the world's leading authority on the application of genius thinking to personal and organizational development" and Caldicott, a great-grandniece of Thomas Edison. Together these are the ingredients for an innovative, even ground breaking work that merges historical insights with contemporary needs.
Alas this book is not it.
Despite writing that, "The competencies and elements for Innovate Like Edison that we describe in the following pages guided us through our entire creative process" (page xi), the book itself is far from innovative and instead patches together an assortment of other self help books with cursory historical anecdotes. It is a cook book of grandma's recipes sprinkled with a few of her memories.
I had the impression that perhaps Gelb had written the book for another purpose and employed Caldicott to garnish it with bits of family history.
Moreover, it fails to address potentially significant insights that flow from Edison's work particularly by comparing his many successes with his numerous failures. Why, for example, were there so many instances of Edison failing to recognise and exploit things he sketched and observed such as the disk phonograph (sketched in 1878 but patented by Berliner in 1887), a decade alter), wireless phenomena observed in 1875 and patented by Edison in 1885 (US Pat 465,971) and the Edison effect. Likewise, Edison spectacularly failed in his magnetic ore extraction venture and as head of the Naval Consulting Board. Examining these, rather than idolising him could have produced valuable insights to guide would be innovators. In fact, it is in the history, where I would have thought the book should excel that it is weakest, making use of only one recent (but good) biography, that of Paul Israel.
The authors note that it is "clear that global innovation leadership has begun shifting away from the United States." Thinking that the answer lies in mediocre books like this can only accelerate the process.
If you want to get more of the flavour of Edison and his times I suggest Conot, Robert E. 1979. A streak of luck. New York: Seaview Books.
An Informative and Engaging Exploration of The Innovation Process  2008-08-09
I have used "Innovate Like Edison" as one of several texts in a graduate course on Creativity & Innovation for new product developers. This book is exceptional, in that it explores the innovation process at several levels. We get to know Edison's personal style from his creativity practices, his notebooks and sketches, and photos of him with contemporaries. We also learn about his leadership style and sometimes quirky management practices, along with the unique culture he created at Menlo Park. And lastly, we see Edison as the systems thinker, not only creating "breakthrough" inventions, but also designing in parallel with an invention the entire market framework and supply chain network that would make the invention truly transformational. In this sense, it might be said that Steve Jobs took a page from the Edison playbook in creating the iPod.
I have used Innovate Like Edison as a natural companion to handbooks on creativity methods, as well as other textbooks that cover critiques and current research relative to the innovation process. Gelb's book "How to think like Leonardo da Vinci" is also an excellent companion for this book, and I have included it in my course readings, although the Engineering work and inventions described in the Edison book are probably more familiar to most students.
Loved this!!! 2008-08-09
This is packed full of information. Something you need to go over and over again in your mind. I'm grateful to have it. Thank u Michael and Sarah for putting this together.
Practical History: A Terrific Mix!! 2008-06-09
Thomas Alva Edison was one of the largest personalities in our history. Gelb and Miller-Caldicott took on a daunting challenge in writing a book that both did justice to this amazing man and made it relevant to the world three-quarters of a century later. Their product is relevant, practical, and engaging.
The authors do a terrific job painting a historical portrait of Edison. It starts with Nancy Edison pulling her son out of school at an early age because she recognized his need to learn by immersing himself in a topic and freely experimenting with what he learned. They also chronicle his early entrepreneurial days as a newspaper boy on the railroads, and then tracking Edison through his adult life. The historical elements of the book are well done and make for a compelling story in and of itself.
What makes this book stand out is the authors' ability to merge that history into a practical framework that describes Edison's genius. The framework allows readers to understand and internalize the many complex facets and abilities of the inventor's personality. The book divides these into five distinctive, but never mutually exclusive, competencies that provide a clarity and cohesiveness to Edison's complex approach to innovation. The melding of history and application is at the core of this book's success.
The authors cap their efforts with an engaging evaluation and development tool that allows readers to measure their innovation profile against the ideal. Completing the exercise is a terrific review of the book and the lessons taught. It provides insight for future personal development and suggestions for improving your innovation quotient.
This is a terrific book for anyone who wants or needs to improve their ability to innovate.
Good Read on Edison 2008-06-01
For an informative picture of the life of Edison as seen through the lense of innovation, this is a good book. It is a blend of a biography and an innovation how-to book. If the history of science appeals to you, so will this book.
You will definitely learn more about the character of Edison. Coupled with it will be the authors' interpretation of Edison's approaches distilled into five sets of five techniques (25 total) for practicing innovation. I think the 5 x 5 configuration is a bit contrived, but nonetheless, the points are reasonably genuine. In the end, I'd probably settle on a handful that were most meaningful because you certainly won't push 25 lines of thinking at once. You'll find the table of 25 near the end of the last main chapter; read the table before you start the book.
If anything, the book will convince you that a high energy level and intense dedication helped Edison as a person achieve his greatness. We do not all possess characteristics like being able to sleep only 4 - 6 hours a night, having a family that puts up with 18-hour work days, etc., so Edison as a personal model is a bit beyond the reach of most of us. It is a bit dangerous to take the exception to extract the rules. The authors don't seem to grasp that point.
Nor do the authors grasp the huge change in the level of technology and the costs of experimentation that have occured since Edison ran his Menlo Park lab and today's world of R&D. That's not to say their points about how to approach innovation are invalid, just that the context is radically different than it was in 1880 - 1920 and at least bears noting. To wit, a digital photocopier is a far cry from a mimeograph machine (if you know what the later is).
All that said, this is an easy book to read and will prompt your thinking on how to promote innovation, either personally or in your organization. Buy it, you'll like it as much for the history as the methodology it describes.
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