Table of Contents
Praise for Peter Fisk
Peter makes you see the world, and your business in a new way. I really like what he has to say. Enjoy every minute of it.
Mariano Dima, Senior VP, Marketing and Product Solutions, Visa Europe
In this latest book in the Genius series, Peter again makes a host of different views accessible and actionable for all. With an eclectic mix of mini cases from business and the arts, Creative Genius stimulates us to think about options and opportunities in many new and different ways.
Tim Jones, Programme Director, Future Agenda
An excellent bringing together of our business challenges that left [us] energised and inspired.
Peter Thomas, Marketing Director, Accenture
Peter challenged our thinking, focused on our biggest issues, and left us inspired.
Jeff Busch, VP Strategic Communications, Meeting Professionals International (MPI)
Thanks to Peter we now have a different view of our world. We have now learnt to see our business from the outside in, like customers do, and with many new opportunities too.
Erdal Karamacan, CEO, Eczacibasi Group (Istanbul)
A glimpse of an exciting new world, where people and technology come together in new ways, and where there are threats and opportunities for all of us.
Anne Rodven, Event Director, Visit Oslo
Peter told an incredibly provocative and compelling story of the new business world, and gave our delegates the inspiration and signposts to think and act differently.
Steve Gilroy, CEO Vistage International (UK)
Marketing Genius by Peter Fisk
A fantastic book, full of relevant learning. The mass market is dead. The consumer is boss. Imagination, intuition and inspiration reign. Geniuses wanted.
Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO Saatchi & Saatchi and author of Lovemarks
Business Genius by Peter Fisk
I loved this book, it is jam-packed with energy, ideas and inspiration you will find something of real value here.
Employer Brand Forum
Customer Genius by Peter Fisk
Wow! 50 great stories of how companies have really got to grips with customers, and 30 very practical tools for doing it yourself. Great book.
Amazon.co.uk reviewer
This edition first published in 2011 by capstone Publishing Ltd. (a Wiley company)
2011 Peter Fisk
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Library of congress cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 9781841127897 (hardback), ISBN 9781906465186 (ebk),
ISBN 9780857080233 (esony), ISBN 9780857080165 (emobi)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Set in Agfa Rotis sans serif 10/13.5 pt by sparks www.sparkspublishing.com
Future back
The wind in my hair and Nike Air on my feet
Past the roaring deer and exotic parakeets
Historic palaces and ancient oak trees
Imagining what they have seen, and what they will see
This is my time to think, to dream and reflect
We are all inspired by the world around us, by nature and people
Creative people, such as artists, musicians and architects
Inventors and designers, innovators and entrepreneurs Stimulated by their
vision and ideas, enabled by business and technology
Thinking bigger about new spaces and opportunities
Searching for the impossible then finding ways to make them possible
Listening to what people would love, not just what is marginally better
Designing the perfect solution and finding a way to make it profitable
Not just competing, but out-thinking the competition Not just creating, but
shaping the world in your own vision
Creativity is the most exciting thing that we do
Design is the most engaging
Innovation the most exhilarating
Thinking what you never thought was possible
Inspiring you to do the extraordinary
In your work and in your life
CHAPTER 1
Leonardo da Vinci
It is easy to say that a person is ahead of his time, but rarely has anyone been so far ahead. He could see the future his insights suggested new possibilities, his imagination was uncluttered by today, and his inventions really did emerge from the future back.
Leonardo da Vinci anticipated many of the great scientific discoveries ahead of his time, including those by copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Darwin. He even went further than them, turning their principles into practical applications, from calculators to helicopters, hydrodynamics to solar power.
Forty years before Nicolaus copernicus, he proclaimed il sole no si muove the sun does not move, dismissing the belief that the earth sits at the centre of the universe.
Two hundred years before Isaac Newton, he proposed the theory of gravity that every weight tends to fall towards the centre by the shortest possible way, and that the Earth must be spherical.
Four hundred years before charles Darwin, he argued that man and monkey had the same origins, and how evolution has shaped the natural world around us.
How did he do this? The answers lie not in science or technology, but in the way in which he saw the world around him and how that made him rethink. From the Mona Lisa to The Last Supper , it is the same approaches that made his paintings so remarkable, that enabled him to create, design and invent many of the aspects of life today.
What was it that inspired, shaped and sustained his creative genius? What were his talents and traits that we could seek to recreate in our own quest for creativity and innovation? Psychologist, and professional juggler Michael Gelb proposed seven components to da Vincis distinctive approach. He labelled them curiosit , sensazione , arte e scienza , connessione , sfumato , dimostrazione and corporalit . Whilst there is nothing futuristic in these attributes themselves, they did enable him to see things differently and, as a result, think different things.