Arie Brish's Book

“Lay an Egg and make Chicken Soup”

The Holistic Innovation Process from Concept to Market Expansion

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“Lay an Egg and Make Chicken Soup

The Holistic Innovation Process from Concept to Market Expansion”

by Arie Brish

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to running a business needs to be replaced by ‘What’s next and how do we get there?”  If you’re not thinking that way, rest assured competitors are.  Once they’ve introduced ‘new’, you’ll be at least a step-behind and it will be difficult to maintain your customer base.

To stay ahead, an innovation mindset must become part of the organization’s DNA from top to bottom.  Why?  Senior management doesn’t have a monopoly on great ideas.  People in the trenches offer insights that management doesn’t have.

How do you engage employees in ideation?  Brish leans on the brain-writing and brain-walking techniques of Bryan Mattimore, which unlike brainstorming, ensures the involvement of every person on a diverse team.

Both start with a creative challenge that’s based upon input from employees, customers, other stakeholders, what’s happening in other industries, etc.  In brain writing, each team member has a clean sheet of paper to list an idea ‘egg’.  The papers are passed sequentially to others to build on the idea until it returns to the initiator.  The team goes through the ideas to see which ‘eggs’ hold the most promise.  In brain walking, blank sheets of flip-chart paper taped to walls are used.

The critical question: “Which egg will produce the best chicken?”  Brish’s three rules for selection: 1. It fills a market need and identifies the total market.  2. ROI must be considered in making choices.  3. The devil is in the details (e.g. barriers to entry, resource availability, scalability, customer aversion to change, customer support plan, etc.).

Takeaway: Brish’s case studies show how small and large companies practice ideation innovation.

jim pawlak book reviewer - arie brish -lay an egg and make chicken soup
Jim Pawlak
Biz Books Syndicated Book Reviews

 

“Lay an Egg and Make Chicken Soup

The Holistic Innovation Process from Concept to Market Expansion”

by Arie Brish

To innovate or to die. That’s Arie Brish’s motto and rightfully so. We’ve all seen it happen over and over again: companies and people who refuse to embrace change fail to thrive, (Blockbuster anyone?).

But how to innovate successfully? That’s not such an easy question. However, Mr. Brish lays out the path for all of us in “Lay an Egg and Make Chicken Soup: The Holistic Innovation Process from Concept to Market Expansion.” From coming up with a new idea to creating a business plan, finding funding, assessing and managing risks, and launching and marketing your innovation successfully, you can find it all in here.

The chapters are presented in an organized way, with a list of abbreviations and acronyms at the beginning, as well as the main takeaways at the ending, making the formatting approachable and all the lessons easy to remember. This is the kind of book you go back to, over and over again, and the format makes it almost effortless.

“Lay an Egg and Make Chicken Soup” is also the embodiment of the famous quote: “‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” The author presents a plethora of case studies and examples of successes and errors from highly reputable companies to show us the dos and don’ts of innovation. I was delighted with the way Mr. Brish narrates these case studies as stories, in an engaging and approachable style, keeping the reader interested all through the book.

The narrative voice is refreshingly lighthearted for a marketing book. Even though Mr. Brish is an expert in the field, he doesn’t get up in his high horse or looks down on the reader, but, he doesn’t dumb down concepts for us, either. Striking this balance is not an easy feat, and it should be applauded. The technical aspects and the jargon are explained and even business layman, like myself, can understand all the concepts. The author doesn’t assume that the reader is the manager of a company, and he adapts all the lessons to be applicable to very different scenarios: from Fortune 500 companies to small startups.

One of the things I like the most about this book is its focus on the human factor of innovation. The book touches on subjects like the importance of team diversity, relationships with customers, assessing your competitors’ strengths, motivating salespeople, and the power of emotions in selling and marketing a new product. All of this reminds us that the power of innovation lies on the people behind the financial concepts, and I think this is a powerful message that many business leaders should keep in mind.

The book is totally updated to fit the new world we’re facing. A world that has drastically changed with globalization, e-commerce, social media, and technological development. The last chapter is devoted to pondering what these new trends and discoveries, like AI, might mean for the business world and for our daily lives as consumers. It was one of my favorite chapters, and it’s a real eye-opener. If you’re planning on innovating, you need to look forward, and the questions that Mr. Brish lays out for the reader are fundamental.

“Lay an Egg and Make Chicken Soup” is a must-read for anyone involved in the business world. You need to read this book if you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or if you’re still on the phase of planning on taking over the world from your garage. Even for readers that are not involved in business or finances, Mr. Brish’s book is an excellent reminder that we should embrace change if we want to succeed.

María Andrea Fernández Sepúlveda

Lay An Egg Make Chicken Soup The Holistic Innovation Process from concept to market expansion. Book Review by Andrea Hernandez. Author Arie Brish.

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