Non-Bullshit Innovation

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.


David Rowan travels the globe in search of the most exciting and pioneering startups building the future. He's got to know the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Xiaomi, Didi, Nest, Twitter and countless other ambitious entrepreneurs disrupting businesses in almost every sector. And yet too often the companies they're disrupting don't get it. They think they can innovate through jargon: with talk of change agents and co-creation gurus, ideas portals and webinars, make-a-thons and hackfests, paradigm shifts and pilgrimages to Silicon Valley. It's mostly pointless innovation theatre - corporate nonsense that has little to do with delivering real change. But during this quest he's also discovered some genuinely exciting and transformative approaches to innovation, often in places you might least expect.

Get ready for:
· The airline that rewards passengers for walking their dog
· The bank that performs surgery
· The country that's an app store
And many more.

Packed full of tips for anyone looking for radical ways to adapt and thrive in the digital age, this carefully curated selection of stories will reveal ideas for creating genuine innovation from some of the world's most inspiring leaders.


© David Rowan 2019 (P) Penguin Audio 2019

Critics Review

  • Wired UK seems to have provided Rowan, who was its founding editor, with an enviable launch pad from which he blasts off to talk to the world’s most innovative people and companies. He does not squander the opportunity… Rowan’s quest for “non-bullshit strategies that can really deliver” takes him from Tallinn to Hangzhou. It is an entertaining quest, well told, and illustrated with plenty of fresh examples from beyond the usual well-worn Silicon Valley legends.

    FT Business Books of the Month

  • In Non-Bullshit Innovation, Rowan combines the deeply researched narrative of a great investigative journalist with the practical punch of a top keynote speaker and delivers a book that is both a deeply engrossing read and a hugely valuable guide. No bullshit.

    Dan Cobley, serial entrepreneur, former Google UK MD

  • In this remarkable book, David Rowan has gone all around the world chronicling what is happening inside businesses as they invent the future. In each case he tells a story of transformation: how an organisation has found a new way of doing things through innovation driven by ruthless entrepreneurial imagination. What is especially useful about Rowan’s journey is that he sticks to real examples of things that are actually happening, eschewing the vague abstractions so popular with innovation gurus — hence “non-bullshit” in the title. He does not just stick with small startups, let alone dreamy “inventors”. He finds innovation in big companies and even within governments. And he focuses on the creation of markets, not just the invention of machines and gadgets: that is to say, innovation rather than invention.

    The Times

  • Perfectly observed, painfully funny and brutally honest, David Rowan has written a book which goes where no one dared to go. Its wisdom will save you a decade of heartache, confusion and self deception. It is the front line in the fight back towards sanity and the Innovation conversation can never be the same again.

    Mark Adams, Chief Innovation Officer, VICE

  • Massively recommend ‘David Rowan’s new book ‘Non-Bullshit Innovation’ – it does exactly what the title promises, showing the best examples of real business innovation, with no guff at all.

    Rohan Silver, Co-Founder of Second Home

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