Perceptive Innovation

Kow walks readers through a detailed exploration of the thesis that a careful management of perception is the most underappreciated yet most crucial aspect of innovation success and demands to be addressed much earlier in design and innovation processes than is currently in practice. Kow presents robust frameworks he has painstakingly developed to understand and implement this principal, most importantly PIPAS, or Perceptive Innovation Project Assessment Sheet, and the 10 T’s Methodology ((Technology, Trace, Time, Talent, Training, Temperature, Thought, Trouble, Tenacity, Tangibility), which together provide “a systematic framework for deliberately engineering how innovations are perceived across their entire lifecycle” Kow helpfully lays out different approaches to the book at the outset, suggesting different orders in which to approach chapters and sections depending on the readers’ needs and goals.

In a straight reading of the book, readers begin with a brief overview of the frameworks followed by several engaging chapters explaining relevant business and consumer behavior theories and analyzing well-known business failures and successes across the decades. There are chapters dedicated to picking apart format wars, AI, enterprise software, consumer hardware snafus and more, which tech-conscious casual readers will enjoy sifting through. Kow works in the key elements that undergird his frameworks, allowing readers to scaffold their understanding before diving into actually using them. The final chapters of the book are the most technical, dedicated to recommendations for implementation of the frameworks, including a 90-day roadmap and how to approach ROI analysis. Graphs, charts, and visualizations of key concepts abound throughout. A free account on Kow’s linked website unlocked by purchasing a copy of the book provides access to a Field Kit including dozens of worksheets for implementation of the ideas found in the book. While robust examples are provided to back up assertions, the absence of citations for statistics and claims such as those in the section “The Social Contagion of Technology” may be missed by readers seeking further information or confirmation of presented arguments. Numerous typos and occasional formatting errors in headings and visualizations also merit addressing. The work is not destroyed by these issues; it simply needs more polish.

Quotes and chapters and the general theory presented could be pulled from this book for business classes at the college and postgraduate level. With a bit more polish and success it could be assigned as a full read.