Creating Things That Matter: The Art and Science of Innovations That Last

I really wanted to “get” this book…but I didn’t. The text didn’t live up to the title – I came away from it no more prepared to create a “thing that matters.”

The author purports to explain “aesthetic creation,” which sounds great, but it never really got explained. A lot of the book was examples and case studies of “aesthetic creators” – there are a lot of chefs, for example, as the author has some background in food science, I gather – that just seemed to wander around, not really going anywhere.

There wasn’t much in the way of concrete guidance (like the title purports to offer). The author does offer a three-part “system,” but it’s simplistic and not helpful: 1. get an idea, 2. experiment, 3. present it to the world.

I didn’t bail out of the book because it’s short, the writing style is breezy, and some of the examples were interesting. But the book did not live up to its title.