As promised, here is the first set of excerpts from my upcoming book, The New Polymath due in June. This time it is from the “front matter” – the preface, acknowledgments etc. I also have included below the summary Table of Contents. If you want to see detailed Table of contents (6 pages) and chapter summaries (another 6 pages), please send me an email and I will send you the entire chapter. BTW - The text is pre-copy edit and likely to go through some changes.
“Mick Jones of Foreigner says a fan who stood in the rain for hours without a ticket to a sold out concert inspired their hit Juke Box Hero. Impressed with his dedication, the band rewarded him with a back stage tour and, of course, the song. Substitute innovation for rock concert and that describes this fan.”
"I want to thank John DeRemigis and Emilie Herman at Wiley. Of course, for all their editing effort on the book, but just as importantly for continuing to encourage me to stick with the title. I loved the title to start with but got increasingly nervous as I presented at various conferences and polled audiences. Very few had heard the term “Polymath”… Polymath as in Greek for someone who excels in many disciplines like Isaac Newton, the English physicist, astronomer and philosopher and Hypatia of Alexandria who was a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and teacher.”
“The book asks: what would Da Vinci do today in the midst of our technology bounty? How wide would his vision of AND not OR be today? Which disciplines would he choose to focus on: Nanotechnology? Biochemistry? Would he work on architecture of next-generation, green cities? Prepare for the Mars shot? Or would he be told to quit dabbling and be good at one thing – like plastics a la Dustin Hoffman? Given the Grand Challenges have grown exponentially in the 5 centuries since Da Vinci lived, The New Polymath can no longer be just one person, but a collection of many.”
“Of course, the Renaissance was not just about Da Vinci. It was also about Michelangelo and tens of other Polymaths. This book brings out the diversity of today’s Renaissance. There are hundreds of innovator companies and their products profiled including large companies like Best Buy and Starbucks. But we also have much smaller companies like Schumacher Group with its aggressive deployment of cloud computing. We have startups like Altimeter Group. We also profile individuals like Karin Morton and Dennis Howlett and technologies which are allowing them to be extremely productive and connected with the world for a pittance. We cover many aspects of infotech but we also touch on healthtech and cleantech…”
“As I wrote the book, I felt like Francis Ford Coppola editing Godfather. Plenty was originally left behind in the Director’s Cut. In fact, the studio made him add almost 50 minutes back to the movie as it was released.”
“We know the ratio of “oh no” to “aha” is off kilter. This book’s goal is to help you reverse that ratio in big and small innovation opportunities.”
“Join me in the rain - fellow Juke Box Heroes!”
The Table of Contents, spread across roughly 400 pages
Part I: Sprezzatura: The Art of Making the Complex Look Easy
Chapter 1: The New Polymath: In An Age of “Wicked Problems” and Technology Abundance
Chapter 2: Modern Day Dark Ages: So Much Stagnation
Chapter 3: Polymath Profile # 1: General Electric
Part II: The R-E-N-A-I-S-S-A-N-C-E framework: Building Blocks for the New Polymath
Chapter 4: Residence: Better Technologically Equipped Than the Office
Chapter 5: Exotics: Innovation from Left Field
Chapter 6: Polymath Profile # 2: Cognizant
Chapter 7: Networks: Bluetooth to Broadband
Chapter 8: Polymath Profile # 3: Plantronics
Chapter 9: Arsonists (and Other Disruptors)
Chapter 10: Polymath Profile # 4: WR Hambrecht + Co
Chapter 11: Interfaces: For All Our Senses
Chapter 12: Sustainability: Delivering To Both the Green and Gold Agendas
Chapter 13: Polymath Profile # 5: Kleiner Perkins Cleantech
Chapter 14: Singularity: The Man-Machine Convergence
Chapter 15: Analytics: Spreadsheets, Search, and Semantics
Chapter 16: Polymath Profile # 6: National Hurricane Center
Chapter 17: Networks Again: Communities, Crowds, Contracts, and Collaboration
Chapter 18: Clouds: Technology-as-a-Service
Chapter 19: Polymath Profile # 7: Salesforce.Com
Chapter 20: Ethics: In An Age Of Cyberwar And Cloning
Part III: Grooming Your Own New Polymath
Chapter 21: Polymath Profile # 8: BP CTO
Chapter 22: Moon Shots for Budding Polymaths
Chapter 23: End Game: A “Beginner’s Mind”
Keep 'em coming Vinnie! I am SO looking forward to the book!
Posted by: Robert Muir | March 07, 2010 at 02:19 PM
As we used to say in Singapore for an "Yes, a good one".. here to you "Can Can!!"
Posted by: Anil Kurnool | March 09, 2010 at 05:59 AM