Books

Creating Value with CO-STAR: An Innovation Tool for Perfecting and Pitching Your Brilliant Idea

by Laszlo Gyorffy and Lisa Friedman.

There is a special kind of magic when it comes to innovation: Innovators develop breakthrough solutions that are often surprising and deliver hope for a better future. They create the next generation of products and services; they fix processes that are broken; they find resources where others languish; they open new markets and sometimes give birth to entirely new industries. While it may appear that innovation success is simply based on creative new ideas, this how-to guide shows that there is an underlying discipline for turning raw ideas into powerful value propositions—a discipline that anyone can learn, from individuals to entire companies and innovation networks. This handbook introduces CO-STAR, an innovation tool and set of practices that can help you: Identify new opportunities to create compelling customer value Capture the essence of your idea and communicate it quickly and clearly to others Collaborate with others to build expertise and intelligence into your solution. Entrepreneurs, innovators, and funders alike can use CO-STAR to build value propositions that are smart enough to launch market-worthy new ventures, and strong enough to make a difference.

“The authors have done an excellent job of blending decades of operational experience and a solid academic underpinning into a working tool for pragmatic managers, entrepreneurs and innovators who need to convince the world that their idea is worth supporting.” -David Punchard, Partner, Cambio Ventures

“CO-STAR is a system that truly builds innovation as an organization’s way of working. If you want a pragmatic process to create innovative solutions to business challenges, this is your book.” - Tom Faure, President, Vibrant Enterprise Associates

The Dynamic Enterprise: Tools for Turning Chaos into Strategy and Strategy into Action

by Lisa Friedman and Herman Gyr, Jossey-Bass Publishers: 1998.

The Dynamic Enterprise enables all its people to look courageously and strategically into the future, and to quickly and effectively put their most essential insights into action. Written by Enterprise Development Group co-founders Lisa Friedman and Herman Gyr, this comprehensive guide to implementing visionary change presents the essential integrated strategy and change model.  It underlies every service EDG offers. The Enterprise Development Framework applies to a wide range of innovation and change initiatives—from creating new business models, new products and services, new organization designs and new collaborations and alliances to aligning teams, corporate culture and leadership development. This book is a useful companion resource for those participating in EDG strategy workshops and projects.

Download the preface to The Dynamic Enterprise.

The Dynamic Enterprise is a handbook packed full of simple yet powerful tools for thriving and growing in today’s global business environment—particularly useful for those working on making a fundamental strategic shift. - J. S. Leggate, CIO and Group Vice President, BP (British Petroleum)

Thriving in our ever changing world requires clear thinking and a team focus. Friedman and Gyr provide tools based on practical experiences to help executives and change agents rise to the challenge of creating organizations that are responsive to and capitalize on change. - Wayne Moon, Chairman and CEO, Blue Shield of California

Global Innovation Science Handbook

The Global Innovation Science Handbook offers a comprehensive guide to the science, art, tools, and deployment of innovation.  We at EDG are proud to have co-authored the book with editors from the International Journal of Innovation Science and a worldwide team of innovation experts and luminaries. Lisa Friedman, Herman Gyr, and Laszlo Gyorffy contributed two of the central chapters:

  • Creating Your Innovation Blueprint: Assessing Current Capabilities and Building a Roadmap to the Future

  • Leading Innovation: Ten Essential Roles for Harnessing the Creative Talent of Your Enterprise

Innovation has become a widely recognized strategic tool to achieve bottom-line results and increase shareholder value. Most books on innovation address only a single aspect of innovation or are tailored to a specific industry. Global Innovation Science Handbook includes chapters on every step of innovation from the perspective of different industries, both private and public. This makes it a complete, authoritative source for learning about innovation. The book spans the process from concepts to commercialization, its management in an organization, a maturity model to assess organization’s growth in deploying innovation, and an innovation index. Case studies share the field experience. This makes innovation easy to implement for readers across all industries.

“Global Innovation Science Handbook (GISH) is extraordinary. Where in one place can you find the best of best practices and the best of next practices? Nowhere. This book has to be part of every Chief Innovation Officers library.” - Mark H. Long, Author, The Innovator’s Holy Grail

“This Handbook will help organizations develop more effective leadership, implement innovation strategies to develop and manage people, knowledge and processes, collaborate, and invest in the delivery of growth through innovation.” - Frank Voehl, CEO & President, Strategy Associates, Inc.