Challenging Everything ISBN: 9781946633873 Forbes Books copyright and written by Scott Cullather & Kristina McCoobery.
The book opens with the usual acknowledgements, an interestingly titled “Tick Tick Tick Boom” prologue followed by a Part One: The Story which contains 4 chapters that also have intriguing titles – Why INVNT? Why Live? Challenge Everything, and Secret Sauce: The Tribe. Part Two: The Work follows with 3 somewhat less uniquely named chapters that explain their business and another that also is a uniquely titled epilogue: Fired/Acquired/Fired/ Reacquired. A short Biography of the authors and list of references completes the book.
Discussion: This is an unusual presentation from a number of perspectives. First, it is the story of the structuring of a company based upon an idea arising from the changes appearing with the advent and growth of new technology. It details the building, operation and activities of the organization whose job is to prominently present a company’s or organization’s product by presenting a show, e.g. “The Genesis Mint Concept launch was the first official event in New York’s Hudson Yards.” (They present similar productions worldwide as a highly successful “story telling agency” with branches distributed in several key sections of the world,.) Second, it describes the unusual manner in which this entrepreneurial couple actually were forced to proceed. Third, the innovative additions they have made to advertising, and fourth, the unique manner in which they divested themselves of the company only to re-acquire it two years later.
Three particularly helpful features of the book are 1 – their listing of “From Chaos to Clarity: The 7 Steps of INVNTion™”; 2 – their “Performance Content and the Big Power of Small Data”, which describes their application of a narrative-led innovation-inspired “Performance Content’ that is “a collaborative of creators, strategists, innovators and producers combined for the first time with the latest in predictive analytics.” Specifically, it “uses algorithmic formulas to leverage over 220 million minutes of video that’s been tagged with a variety of relevant meta data points, like ethnicity, gender, place, time, color, celebrity, and non-celebrity.” The results allow them to predict the probable acceptance level of a product from their proposed design. 3 – the “core” of INVNT, described as a “Makers’ Dozen” that provides “a can’t fail toolbox of twelve universal ideas and practices that we believe can be applied successfully to any endeavor, whether that’s harnessing the power of live to build a brand, developing your team’s capabilities, starting your own business, navigating your career inside a large organization, or just effectively inventing your future,”
Summary: Most helpful presentation for the entrepreneurial mind.
5* for ‘niche’ group; great entrepreneurial thoughts for all.