thebook

The Myth of the Mousetrap: how to get your ideas adopted (and change the world)

by Anne Miller

This book is for anyone who ever had an idea for how to make the world a slightly better place, but no one would listen. It explains why it's so difficult to get an idea adopted and how to get your ideas taken seriously and put into action. Click here for more information on the book, to read reviews and to buy. 

"This book is important and beautifully written"

Jeremy Waller, Primavera gallery, Cambridge UK

"This book will be invaluable for those who want to get their ideas - especially novel ones - accepted"

Professor Brian Josephson, Physics Nobel Laureate 1973

articles: annemiller

Anne Miller writes the Cat-herder column on Cambridge Network.  To read all Cat-herder articles, click here . Articles include

Cat-herding, the art of managing creative people

A climate for creativity

Make money from ideas: Start by banning the ClipArt light bulb

Other articles include:

That’s a cracking idea

10 tips for making money out of your ideas.

Innovations speak louder than words. Roger Eglin, Sunday Times, 24 April 2005

Ideas Audit 2, Anne Miller, EEDA, 2005

An article summarising the results of a survey carried out by Anne Miller for the East of England Development Agency on the leadership of innovation. It explores the techniques used by three inspiring leaders to encourage innovation within their very different organisations: Tony Hooley, founder of 1 Ltd, the inventors of the digital sound projector, Alison Richard, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University and Simon Loftus, Chairman of Adnams.

How to Make Money from Ideas; opinion piece by Anne Miller on the BBC website.
As part of the East of England's Space for Ideas initiative, inventor Anne Miller, who has registered more than 30 patents during the last 20 years, celebrates Britain's creative minds and asks why the UK is so lousy at making money from them.

Zen and the Art of Innovation by Anne Miller. 
A look at the parallels between the innovation management techniques used by large Japanese corporations and some of the most innovative European companies. 
Download 1.5MB PDF file (with pics) or 100KB PDF file (text only).

bibliography

This section summarises a few of our favourite articles and books relating to creativity.

Managing Innovation: When Less is More by Professor Charlan Nemeth (80 KB file)
Most companies, even those considered "visionary", emphasize mechanisms of social control rather than innovation but, by harnessing the power of conflict, one can limit complacency and ultimately produce better and more original solutions.

Creative Management, ed Jane Henry. ISBN: 080398491X
An excellent Open University collection of papers on Creativity in Management

Creative Cognition, Finke, Ward and Smith, MIT Press. ISBN: 0262560968
A thorough and accessible summary of some of the best practical research by psychologists on the creative process.

The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation, Nonaka and Takeuchi. ISBN: 0195092694
This is rapidly becoming a classic business book. An excellent discussion of how Japanese culture affects their product development and innovation processes. There is an interesting parallel between the ‘middle-up-down’ management style of large Japanese companies, championed by Nonaka, and the importance that is placed on the project leader (note leader, not manager) in some of Europe’s most innovative technical companies. Our paper, Zen and the Art of Innovation, discusses this in more detail.

Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, Utterback, Harvard Business School Press. ISBN: 0875847404
Discusses the innovation process and gives lots of real examples of product developments from typewriters to PCs, light bulbs to fluorescent imaging. The book is based on several decades of research.

Links

• The MIT's Technology Review magazine has articles on new technology.
• Yet2.com is an interesting technology transfer site.
• Wessex Round Table of Inventors claims to be the most comprehensive source of information on the web for inventors.

It helps creativity to talk about your ideas but, if you need to protect the idea while doing so, either be selective about how much detail you disclose to whom, use a Confidentiality Agreement, or patent the idea. Patent offices in the UK, Europe and US have good guides on how to apply for a patent:

• UK patent office website
• European patent office website
• US patent office website
• Free patents online website