I read this book while I was studying abroad in London. When I think about my stay in London, I think about this book—it is brilliant.

I found myself often skimming several pages at a time, but overall this was a refreshing book that reiterated some of the things we don’t pay enough attention to when trying to be creative people in a corporate environment. In particular, I liked the talk about how good work often comes from the darker, less optimistic, sides of us. When we’re super happy with your job, you aren’t required to be as creative and innovative. It sort of rings true with how things are going right now at my work.

This was given to me by an ex-manager at work, and I have to admit that at first it looked a little too cheesy for me. After the first full chapter, though, which related Beowulf to the workplace, I think I can sense that there might be something to glean from this after all. As much as I cringe at the thought of a self-labeled “poet” writing business advice, some of the poems he’s using are actually not that bad (“Waste Land”, “Beowulf”, “The Divine Comedy”).

Some light reading.

Recommended this by an ex-director of our department. The introduction so far sounds promising—though I don’t know what queueing theory is I get the feeling that I’m going to find out.

This book is really interesting so far, but I get the feeling that it’s going to plateau within the first 100 pages and then just glide the rest of the way in. Most likely, I’ll read to page 150 or so and then move on.

Lots of good stuff about brainstorming, prototyping, and effective group forming. I’m a little torn, though, about whether or not the environment of IDEO is an environment I’d want to work in. Perhaps the focused sillyness of it all is a little suspicious to me. Nevertheless, there are definitely a lot of things to think about applying from this book so far.

I felt like this book could’ve been summarized by a short essay. Most of it was filler.

I’ve been waiting for my library to get this in for weeks, but today I finally just gave in and bought it. So far so good.

I like the tone of this book… still trying to grasp the meaning.