Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Are Good Books On Inventing, Innovating and Doing R&D?
dryriver writes: I've signed up to a project that involves inventing new ways to do things and also performing the technology R&D required to make these new ways a reality. So, dear Slashdotters, are there any good books on inventing, innovating or doing R&D? Books that describe different ways to approach inventing/R&D? Books on managing a team effort to invent, innovate and research? Or even good books about the history of past inventions -- how they were created, why they were created, how and why they succeeded or failed in the real world? Thanks!
Book of Genesis, specifically.
you signed up for an R&D project and have no idea where to start... I am sure this project will be successful
Read about TRIZ... it's about how inventions evolve in predictable ways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and this is a book by it's creator:
And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared: TRIZ, the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving
by Horowitz and Hill is probably the best book if you want to learn electronics. As far as R&D in general, I've never seen a good reference.
"Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook: Advice on Inventing Success"
by Maurice Kanbar
(invented SKYY vodka)
The Lean Startup
Sadly, there aren't any good books on the subject because research on this form of creativity boost is not allowed in the US.
You can try "How to get rich quick, by inventing the shit out of things'
By yours truly.
Only $99.95
If your goal is to "Invent" you might wind up with an incremental improvement.
If you "explore" a system you have a chance of combining things in a way that creates a disruptive technology.
Recommend Scott Adams blog post "Goals vs. Systems" http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964992706/goals-vs-systems.
Read Five Dysfunctions of a Team and the Dilbert Principle. You can't create innovation and successful R&D without talent, but at least you'll know what not to do with your team members.
The first rule of inventing stuff is to define specifically what exactly do you wish to achieve.
A series by Nathan Rosenberg and David Mowery:
Also,
This is a great book about understanding the scientific method. It has allowed me to invent many things over the years. Here are some starter links:
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED3938...
http://scientificmethod.com/b_...
https://books.google.com/books...
https://smile.amazon.com/Diffe...
Also, you might want to go get:
https://smile.amazon.com/Young...
https://smile.amazon.com/Ogilv...
I'm sure many graduate students have poured over this book to gain insights about how to make their ideas and experiments come to life. I've seen this book in quite a few labs.
There is no such thing. There are some (poor) books on project management but managing, inventing and innovating isn't something you learn, it's something you spend lots of time on without reward for 9/10 of "inventors".
Goal-oriented R&D is called engineering and manufacturing. You probably need to be more specific about the branch you need engineers in.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
1) Brian Tracy "The Psychology of Success"
2) This video, by John Cleese
3) Anthony Robbins, "Get The Edge"
Each of these addresses the psychological aspect of creativity.
http://store.doverpublications... From the dover-books website :
"This book is intended to assist scientists in planning and carrying out research. However, unlike most books dealing with the scientific method, which stress its philosophical rationale, this book is written from a practical standpoint. It contains a rich legacy of principles, maxims, procedures and general techniques that have been found useful in a wide range of sciences.
While much of the material is accessible to a college senior, the book is more specifically intended for students beginning research and for those more experienced research workers who wish an introduction to various topics not included in their training. Mathematical treatments have been kept as elementary as possible to make the book accessible to a broad range of scientists. Its principles and rules can be absorbed to advantage by workers in such diverse fields as agriculture, industrial and military research, biology and medicine as well as in the physical sciences.
After discussing such basics as the choice and statement of a research problem and elementary scientific method, Professor Wilson offers lucid and helpful discussions of the design of experiments and apparatus, execution of experiments, analysis of experimental data, errors of measurement, numerical computation and other topics. A final chapter treats the publication of research results.
Although no book can substitute for actual scientific work, this highly pragmatic compendium contains much knowledge gained the hard way through years of actual practice. Moreover, the author has illustrated the ideas discussed with as many actual examples as possible. In addition, he has included notes and references at the end of each chapter to enable readers to investigate particular topics more deeply. E. Bright Wilson, Jr. is a distinguished scientist and educator whose previous works include Molecular Vibrations and Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (with Linus Pauling). In the present book, he has distilled years of experiment and experience into an indispensable broad-based guide for any scientific worker tackling a research problem. Reprint of the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1952 edition. - See more at: http://store.doverpublications..."
See the presenter notes to get the idea.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CaieHjx9j24UFXq0GwmCdnIslK-KqIztRqlv20aLy_I/edit
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. History of Bell Labs from the founding to around the 80s.
hookers and grits.
Michael A. Hiltzik - Big Science Lawrence Goldstone - Drive! Kevin Ashton - How to Fly a Horse
Dryriver,
I found a very insightful book that illustrates the development of ideas and inventions. Its somewhat older (1960's) but talks about the backstory of inventiveness and how the ideas were brought into realization. Camera, typewriter, X-ray, tv...
Aptly named: Ideas and Inventions by Egon Larsen
There are no good books unless you include religious texts. I've been coming up with ideas for 18 years working in research at a college and the things that help me are: writing down ideas as soon as I get them (always have paper and pencil handy, even at night and when showering and traveling), absorbing knowledge from everywhere (read farm catalogs, listen to the lyrics of music, delve into sociology, psychology, physics, chemistry, business processes, finance, everything), and get rid of clutter in your mind (simplify your life, have good interesting friends, meditate.)
If the book advocates specific processes to follow, such as Agile, it is NOT about innovation, and is about pandering to clueless-but-requiring-motivational-guidance-types. On a positive note, I would recommend Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's dilemma". It has multiple case studies as to what works, and _why_ they work.
Everything has already been invented or at least theorized. So you might as well start being a patent troll if you have more money than the big corporations already doing the same.
this is a music book, it is full of ways to fake playing popular jazz standards with simplified chords.
this allows you to more easily bring improvisation into your playing of the song.
if you dont understand 20th century jazz improvisation, you do not understand innovation.
yes i know everyone thinks it came from geniuses in a lab. its fucking bullshit. every country has geniuses in labs.
the freedom of thought comes from your cultural background, as does it's opposite. jazz represents creative freedom in the same way people who play the same mozart piece the same way it has been played for 300 years represent creative stagnation.
Read up on Marketing. You will likely have to "invent" something that brings value to an internal or external customer. So find out what this value is! Then read up on gradual vs. radical invention and what it means for how you run your R&D operations. The topic is also covered in operations management research (i.e. in books you read at business school). Having some knowledge of how academics do research is also very useful. Read up on how prototyping and product design work. Finally you need some relevant tech skills, but you may have them already since you're on Slashdot.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
If you're going to make something please make it intuitive.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Go get a PhD in your field. I think that ought to do it.
Check Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair website, he's been inventing stuff for decades. http://www.tinaja.com/
Mythical Man Month, about the development of OS/360.
Why bother these losers here? Ask the billionaires.
Innovation in... ? accounting? Ask Mr. Ponzi. Banking? maybe the guys at Goldman Sachs can help you out?
Technical stuff? Get some engineering books. They will not get you far. Most schools are geared towards making you a cog in a gear, not the guy running the shop. Read the bio's on famous inventors, entrepreneurs etc. Patents? Good shit, 99% do not make a penny, except for the lawyers who filed them for a steep fee. How did Nicola Tesla get his ideas? He made a lot of money right?
Learning how to invent is like learning how to be a genius.
I've taught a class on essentially this topic in a senior-level class for a couple of years at a top-10 US University, so I've performed this same search that you are (My day job is Research Faculty). I could find very little. This thread has some nice suggestions that I am definitely going to check out, though.
Looking back now, I can see that in my own learning of the art of science and of R&D, it was all bits and pieces learned from people. Whether in undergrad, grad school, or as a post-doc – it was always the same case. I made a habit of listening to those whom I found competent. Most of the real, kernel-level things that I learned were discrete and small lessons. Sometimes a single observation or suggestion.
I wish I could articulate something useful, but really it was the experience of working with others in science or R&D/engineering that I learned the most valuable lessons. Becoming competent in this skill-set is, as far as I can tell, best achieved by being an understudy – an apprentice. That is actually what graduate school is: an apprenticeship.
I am not saying these things cannot be learned in other ways. If grad school is not an option, then read some of the fine-sounding books listed in-thread. Associate yourself, if you can, with anyone who possesses these skills.
Good luck.
...it was called atlas shrugged. It was by a woman who somehow was both from the past and the future. It did a fair job of telling you what being a minority is like, provided your minority status symbol was inventiveness and creativity.
It's a must-read.
Truly new ideas are few and far between, so learn from some folks that have a track record bringing new ideas into the world. A few starting points:
Look up "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed" by Ben Rich - a history (with some run rules and other operational lessons learned) on one of the top "innovation" shops of the last 50 years.
Saw someone posted The Idea Factory, also highly recommended.
As for making things a reality, try "Design of Design" and "The Mythical Man-Month", both by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
And then if you want to understand how to make your invention matter, look up "The Innovator's Dilemma" and its ilk from Clayton M. Christensen.
Hope that helps.
Practice and sweat. That will give you experience which is the greatest book of all.
(mechanical engineer) Product development professional and R&D manager here, hi.
I don't remember what we read in school, but there's a lot out there on development of products (we had some book with an example of the development of the phillips screw driver).
The process is good to follow - it helps you keep your head together and explain upwards where you are in the project and what you are doing (and why you can't show a finished proto just yet).
Basically:
1 Research & brainstorming (there are several structured methods for brainstorming - read up on them)
2 when good things found -> develop some of them to a preset maturity (watch your resources and plan realistically)
3 kill off if good things show low promise (again - preset targets are easiest to use), and transfer resources to the other promising ideas
4 pick winning idea.
5 develop and be ready to return to 1 (depens on the field you are in how certain your idea is to succeed)
6 sometimes beeing able to prove a certain direction is a dead-end is also success - if you document what you are doing well. So allways document.
I've worked at several startups, and in R&D groups in larger companies. I've worked at all levels, most often directly with the research scientists. I've been at the elbows of amazing inventors, researchers and innovators. None of them followed any common models, or had many shared processes, but they did share several characteristics that helped me in my own efforts.
When I got out of the US Navy I became a technician, initially performing production calibration of scientific instruments. Soon I was helping on new products and beta instruments. Then one of our scientists lost his lab technician and I was asked to fill-in. It was like drinking from a firehose while juggling grenades. But I immediately knew what I wanted to do, and that was a career in R&D.
1. Know the theory.
It is difficult to create anything truly new unless you have a deep and broad understanding of the relevant theory. This can be done while getting a BS (which I did, but it was a 5-year BS), but most often it requires an MS. Or equivalent! You certainly can get the classes in the evenings. Technologies and their applications come and go at a furious rate: Theory never becomes obsolete, and it only grows with time.
2. Know the the field.
It is important to know what's already been done in the field, and what's happening now. Sometimes, our new great idea has actually been done before, and likely failed. Knowing the history, the main companies, the main researchers, and the applicable technology in a field is vital to know even what or where to innovate. This typically means joining professional societies (SPIE, IEEE, ACM, etc.), subscribing to journals, going to conferences, trade fairs, and vendor/distributor seminars.
4. Know all the buzzwords.
It is important to know the full vocabulary within a field, within its adjacent fields, and within all fields it relies upon. It's all the "meta-data", knowing what things exist and how they are related. You do NOT need to know much of anything about the underlying theory or tech. This is where Google makes a difference. Become expert at "surfing buzzword chains". If you know just the conceptual connections, you know a huge amount about the field.
One critical area for such buzzword/meta-data knowledge is math, particularly applied math. For example, I have never used, implemented or even seen an "Extended Kalman Filter", but I know where and when they are used, and if I'm ever in a related area, I'll know it's time to study EKFs. I've read the abstracts and conclusions in papers about EKFs (that's where the vocabulary is), but I have yet to read any of the pages in-between.
5. Learn from others.
I was extraordinarily lucky to have a terrific scientist mentor so early. Don't wait for luck! Learn who the innovators are in your field, find out the events they attend, make sure you go to them, and offer to buy lunch, beers, or whatever else is needed to get time with them. Join the email groups and forums they participate in. Follow them on social media. Read every article or paper they ever wrote.
Then ask them for a job. It rarely works, but it's worked for me twice! (I just got really used to "No", and kept trying.)
6. Read biographies of great innovators and companies.
Start close to your field, the go wider as needed. Be sure to focus on ones that emphasize the technical aspects. I generally avoid autobiographies unless they have a great ghost-writer and/or have great reviews from technical folks.
7. Think outside the box. Literally.
Don't get trapped within US culture. Do some of all the above outside of English-speaking countries. Particularly focus on Asia. Learn bits of other languages, such as Mandarin and Russian, enough to be polite at conferences (Duolingo rocks). Use Google Translate to read papers lacking English versions.
8. NEVER be afraid to ask a "stupid" question!
I can't emphasize this enough. Most scientists are eager to discuss their work, but t
https://books.google.com/books?id=kz6pCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=TRIZ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFr__jnbLTAhUO82MKHdHUCp4Q6AEIDzAB#v=onepage&q=TRIZ&f=false
That's all you need: mass synergy. Drink 10 cups of it a day. If that doesn't work, lodge some up your ... wait a sec, children around...
Table-ized A.I.
Novel inventions are born out of intense curiosity. Curiosity can't be taught by reading a book. Set up an environment where people are encouraged to experiment, are rewarded for success, and are not penalized for failure. Many great inventions were the result of mistakes made in the lab. Don't try to formalize the process too much as it reduces the probability for mistakes.
By Mankind is a great read. Very helpful for innovators everywhere. I swear by it.
... maybe you are not in the right field.
I always thought it was the way one internally works that makes him good at R&D and such.
All the rest is knowledge acquired at university and in life.
Put interesting people in close quarters with minimal oversight and throw money at them. I can't say it works every time, but I'd like to see anyone come up with any example of consistently highly performing R&D that followed another model. If you have a particular problem you want solved, do the above, then figure out how to make the given problem as interesting as possible.
R&D engineer here, and a pretty seasoned one at that.
So typical of American people. Replace 5+++ years of postgraduate studies and about as many years of professional practice with a ten-lesson book.
Get real. This is not year 1850, when many simple an yet useful inventions had not yet been discovered.
Work your way through engineering studies, and not the fake American ones; real engineering, with a master's math level as a prerequisite to understanding and then mastering basic scientific theories. As a mere example, anyone claming to do any kind of serious design involving fluid flows must know their way around Navier-Stokes, and therefore understand PDEs. Not to mention being proficient in CFD, and that doesn't mean just clicking in a shiny GUI.
Then learn engineering proper; that requires a fair amount of knowledge AND understanding of VARIOUS fields of Physics and engineering sciences. Get a culture. That's when you'll begin acquiring the ability to think in terms of meaningful analogies and design truly new devices, as opposed to haphazardly rediscovering square wheels.
Then spend 5+++ years doing R&D under the supervision of real R&D engineers, just to learn how it really works in the real world, including being able to write patent applications and, most of all, getting repeatedly slapped in the face by, you know, reality, each time it tells you that your shiny new trait of genius has been around for decades, only just better designed. That's how engineering life is learned.
Finally, congratulations! You have just become a real engineer.
You signed up for a project that required some knowledge and skills you knew you do not possess and now hope to make up for it by reading books you don't even know exist? And you ask for advice on an internet forum? Fuck, what a dolt. I hope the managers find out, fire you and make sure you won't be able to pull this stunt again. Typical nerd.
Anything to do with 'Systematic Inventive Thinking':
https://www.google.com/webhp?q...
This book - "Inside the Box" - is a good introduction:
http://www.insidetheboxinnovat...
Also, "Get back in the box" (haven't fully read it yet):
http://www.rushkoff.com/books/...
You will be able to control the project and take the credit for its success.
That's something no one really think about!
I do not believe that you can teach inventiveness or innovation.
What you can and must do is to make sure that all the people involved have at least some knowledge of the science behind and in the practical technical aspects of of the field in which you intend to innovate. Otherwise you get a lot of enthusiastic, possibly bright but ignorant people trying to do things which are a waste of time and effort (think reinventing the wheel - badly). So you really need some good basic handbooks or textbooks across a broad range of fields (and preferrably at least one person with some experience or formal education in that field). And before anyone goes off the deep end about useless book-knowledge and field-expertise stifling creativity, consider that for every briliant idea that is overlooked by narrow-minded experts, there are millions which never make it simply because they really aren't practical or are plain impossible, and the would-be inventor didn't know enough to see this from the outset (perpetual-motion machines, for a famous example).
Having said that, there have been some attempts at finding structured methods to assist in generating and evaluating potential new products/designs/innovations. Some of these are found in textbooks like "The Mechanical Design Process" by David G. Ulman (which was prescribed in my first undergrad design course). But without some decent domain-specific knowledge or experience to inform the decision process, these aren't going to be all that useful.
Maybe a bit old-school and more on the fringes of what you seem to be interested in, but this is certainly worth a read
Clay Christensen: The Innovators Dilemma
Also on the fringes but interesting may be Running Lean and the Lean Startup
Any biography, or better, autobiography of Richard Feynman is pretty inspiring.
I would give Tracey Kidder's Soul of a New Machine a heavy recommendation. Released in 1981, it recounts events at Data General in 1979-1980, where a small team of engineers rapidly developed a 32-bit minicomputer. The team was up against nearly impossible deadlines and breaking new ground to create a machine that paved new ground while maintaining backwards compatibility with 16-bit predecessors. Some of it is just narrative, but mostly it is a study of the players: their motivations, their backgrounds, and how they all operated as a team. If you enjoy the TV show Halt and Catch Fire, this book will be right up your alley.
The title was a comment from a VC fund manager and I could not say it better. If the goal is a product I would recommend:
Product Design & Development, by Eppinger and Ulrich
Developing Products in Half the Time, by Preston G. Smith and Donald G. Reinertsen
Recent versions may have different titles.
Didn't see it posted....
Steven Johnson's "Where Good Things Come From" lays out a pretty good framework for innovative environments. ('Emergent' is also pretty good).
Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" is also a good read.
And last, Dietrich Dorner's "The Logic of Failure" might be also good, from the other direction....
https://www.amazon.com/Mars-Pa... Excellent book about managing a project of unknowns. Well written and concise.
Assuming you are asking about the tech industry, this book (http://amzn.to/2oZdWyx) describes how to use Design Thinking for doing exactly what you are talking about. It just came out, and I've been through it with my team. We all have loved it.
tora
Still one of the best references on the subject.
Most of the other posts concentrate on literal nuts and bolts, but you need people, too.
If you were that guy, you'd already be getting 6-12 invention ideas any time (every time) you hear about what other people are doing, or any time you see whatever mediocre thing passes for "good" today.
.
If you were that guy, you'd find it hard to talk to "regular" people, because you already know the rest of what they're saying just three words into any given sentence.
.
If you were that guy, you would already know it by now, and you would never ask about "books"... especially on the internet - which made "books" practically obsolete.
.
I'm sorry kid, but there's just no paint by numbers starter kit for changing the world.
Best practices, lean startup, iterative development
Best Practices,
First survey people who are doing the same or similar things. Not necessarily in that field. Look at how package delivery people do things for routing the tractor on your farm.
Lean Startup,
Minimum Viable Product (MVP), what is the least you can do to get started.
Iterative Development,
Break the problem down into small bite size chunks, and don't forget, sometimes you learn more from your failures then your successes. When possible run multiple bits in parallel.
Here is an example problem, The Pizza Pi Day Paradox, first conceived on Pi Day.
Divide a pizza evenly among 3 people by only cutting the pizza or any slice in half.
Answer
First solve for 2 people cut the pizza in half. Next,solve for 4 people cut the pizza in half now cut the halves in half.
The 3 person solution will be between the 2 & 4 person solution.
Cut the pizza into 4 slices, give each person a slice.
Take the remaining slice and cut it in half, and then cut those in half.
You now have 4 slices again.
Rinse and repeat.
Take aways,
If you can't solve the hard problem, then solve an easier problem to gain insight.
Purposely pick problems that are easy to calculate, typically powers of 2 or 10.
Sometimes a problem will need to be iterated on.
An approximate answer is often good enough.
Favorite epistemology quote.
"The map is not the territory"
Math & Science are the maps, not the territories!
Hope this helps
by Clayton Christensen, who put the phrase disruptive innovation on the map with his theories of innovation.
From the Amazon review:
"Christensen explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. No matter the industry, he says, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know how and when to abandon traditional business practices."
And "Christensen suggests that by placing too great an emphasis on satisfying customers' current needs, companies fail to adapt or adopt new technology that will meet customers' unstated or future needs, and he argues that such companies will eventually fall behind. Christensen calls this phenomenon "disruptive technology" "
So if you are innovating in an existing company, better keep your eye on your company's willing to adopt your changes. If they are already successful with existing products and business practices, you may struggle to get support for your innovations. And if you are in a startup, don't be afraid to create a product at a much lower price point, even if it does some of the key features of the existing products. You can innovate on either low cost, good enough or innovative technology according to Christensen. For example, there's a reason why Oracle finally had to buy MySQL. MySQL kept stealing more and more clients who needed a cheap/free database that was good enough from its massive, enterprise products. On the other hand, a technology example would br cell phones with cameras. They were such innovative technology that they pretty much killed off the low end and some of the medium part of the camera market and forced everyone from using camera film to digital images.
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change) Paperback – January 5, 2016
by Clayton M. Christensen (Author)
You are going to be depressed when you realise these are buzzwords....
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/Idea-Factory-Bell-Labs-Great-American-Innovation/0143122797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492768172&sr=8-1&keywords=the+idea+factory
Here's my two cents:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf
The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen
The key principles to understand and recognize is the lifecycle of the department, division, business, market, and industry and specifically where a product, business, you are in that lifecycle. The Innovator's Dilemma covers this if you pay attention. Also studying Systems Theory goes a long way if you know how to apply it to anything and everything.