Riddle Review

Work has been pretty busy as of late, as I'm dealing with insane demand stimulus and capacity issues. I took off work on Friday to get some personal things done, as well as finish up Andrew Razhegi's new book, The Riddle.

A few people have asked for a review, and I think the true review of a business book is the amount of useful insights or enlightening ideas you can draw from it and apply. With this as my yardstick, there are some really great takeaways from The Riddle that I'll share with you. I recommend reading the book - and it's a quick read. If you're a brand manager, product developer, or entrepreneur, this is a great book for the library.

Here's some of my 3 favorite notes from the book. There are many more useful tidbits, but I found these to be foundational and useful.

- If you don't have a well defined problem to attack, your innovation will be off the mark. Don't innovate for the sake of making something novel (unless you're in the art business). Innovate to solve problems.
- Consumers have a difficult time communicating what they need. As opposed to asking them what they want, observe what they are unable to do.
- Great thought exercise: Ask why 5 times to your problem, and you'll likely come to a deep understanding of root causes. When you have your solution, make sure you also ask Why Not?