Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire

In an unstable job market, many of us struggle to keep our skills current and marketable. To that end, Nussbaum, professor at the Parsons School of Design and a former Businessweek editor, brings us both good and bad news. The bad news is that a survey of 1,500 CEOs revealed that the most valuable management skill was no longer marketing or operations but creativity, a new literacy that employees will need to stay competitive. The good news is that these skills can be learned. Nussbaum dedicates much of the book to five practices that help individuals nurture and develop prized creative skills: knowledge mining, framing, playing, making, and pivoting. Latter sections of the book explore the economic value of creativity. The author shows the faulty thinking behind, and consequences of, the triumph of finance over product creation. More importantly, he offers a viable economic model, which suggests that creativity is a source of economic value, entrepreneurs drive growth, capitalism is a social movement, and social networks are the basic building blocks of the economy. This is a refreshing, informative, and groundbreaking new work that has implications for every level of the business arena. (Mar.)