Friday, March 26, 2010

 

New Books from Darrell Mann

Darrell Mann has 4 new books and a chapter in a 5th just published in the last few weeks. See http://www.systematic-innovation.com/Products/Products01.htm for details and the order form.

Fans of Matrix 2003 will welcome Matrix 2010, based on Darrell's extensive research on both the patent literature and business publications for a wide variety of examples.

TrenDNA by Darrell Mann and Yekta Ozozer adds examples and a set of cards useful for group exercises to the work that has been published as a series of articles in the Systematic Innovation e-zine, the TRIZ Journal, and a several conferences, on the relationships between cultural, psychological and generational populations and the similarities and differences in the trends that these populations are looking for in products and services. This is a huge research project, presented in an easy to understand format, to be customized for any company's applications.

Two unique books are published by Darrell's IFR Press.
1. Helen Esenmaus' Templeton Three: a story of corporate death by a thousand tiny improvements is a business novel, with many recognizable worst case scenarios. (Warning, the language is very British English colloquial--I had to guess at the meaning of some of the dialog.)
2. Edward Matchett's Fundamental Design Method (with notes and a foreward by Darrell Mann). This is the final summary of work done by Matchett from
the 1960's through the '90's, that in many senses is a forerunner of TRIZ. The concepts of ideality, use of resources, and elimination of contradictions are explored from a different point of view, reaching many of the same conclusions as TRIZ. I look forward to the publication next year of Matchett's more detailed texts.

The most unexpected book of all is The View, essays by twenty-nine authors on the spiritual future of humankind with a chapter by Darrell Mann, ‘Embracing Conflict/Transcending Conflict’ (order this one from your local or on-line bookseller). Expand your TRIZ attitudes out of your professional sphere into your whole life!

I invite readers to send reviews of these books--I'll be glad to print them in this blog. Generally, the purpose of reviews is to help readers decide whether to buy the book, and I think that we have so few good books about TRIZ/Systematic Innovation, and Darrell has such a good history of providing value in his books--even if you don't agree with him, you get value from reading his point of view--so there is no real decision here. The other point of a review is to "help" the author improve his/her work, and that's also an area where I don't think my input is needed. But, if anybody takes my advice to buy these books, and wants to send comments or reviews, you are welcome!

Comments:
Victor Fey just pointed out to me that Matchett's work was about 20 years later than Altshuller's and the original TRIZ research, so the term "forerunner" is inappropriate. I definitely was writing from the biased position of an English-speaking engineering community that did not hear about TRIZ until the late 1980's at the earliest.
 
I have all the books except the last one. "The View". Now reading " trenDNA". will surely write book summary

Regards,

Prashant
 
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