Borrowing Brilliance

The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others

By: David Kord Murray

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

As a former aerospace scientist, Fortune 500 executive, chief innovation officer of two major companies, inventor and software entrepreneur, David Murray has made a living by coming up with new and innovative ideas. In Borrowing Brilliance he explains the origins and evolution of a business idea by showing you how new ideas are merely the combination of existing ideas.

Since brilliance is actually borrowed, it's easily within reach. It's really a matter of knowing where to borrow the materials and how to put them together that determines creative ability. Murray presents a simple Six-Step process that anyone can use to build business innovation:

Step One: Defining - Define the problem that you're trying to solve.

Step Two: Borrowing - Borrow ideas from places with a similar problem.

Step Three: Combining - Connect and combine these borrowed ideas.

Step Four: Incubating - Allow the combinations to incubate into a solution.

Step Five: Judging - Identify the strength and weakness of the solution.

Step Six: Enhancing - Eliminate the weak points while enhancing the strong ones.

Each chapter features real-life examples of brilliant borrowers, including profiles of Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the Google Guys), Bill Gates, George Lucas, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, and other creative thinkers. Murray used these methods to re-create his own career and he shows how you can harness them to find your own creative solutions. First you copy, then you create. And the further into your own company you look, the more creative the solution.

©2009 David Kord Murray (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"While somewhat repetitive, Murray's prescriptions are lucid and helpful." (Publishers Weekly)

Surprisingly good

A good summary of the creative process.
Right on the money.
Will listen to it again later.

Really good but...

I really enjoyed the concepts in this book, and the performance was excellent. However, I did feel like there was a lot of unnecessary redundancy that could have made the whole book experience a lot shorter and really not lost any content or core ideas.

Overall though, I felt it was a strong piece and well-delivered.

Great book about shifting your mindset

This book helped me shift my mindset and enable me to understand how to innovate. He succinctly explain how to borrowing can be a source of innovation. Mr. Murray takes you on a step by step approach through the creative thinking process.
I'm glad I read this book because it helped change the way I think through problems that will enable me to be more productive. Thanks Mr. Murray!

Great!

this book has great insight for all different professions, not just engineering and idea development, but sales and otherwise. It could also be helpful from a parenting or spouse perspective.