Richard Ogle has written a book about Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas. But don't let us convince you it's worth a read. Let him.

1. The knowledge economy is rapidly morphing into the creative economy. With game-changing breakthroughs like the iPod, iPhone, YouTube, and Nintendo Wii upsetting entire industries, breakthrough creativity is a topic you can no longer afford to ignore.
2. Smart World is based on insights from two breakaway sciences: e-theory, a powerful, rapidly expanding area of cognitive science that demonstrates the surprising extent to which our thinking and behavior is shaped by social and cultural networks; and network science, an exponentially expanding branch of complexity studies that reveals the laws governing the dynamics of these networks. If you’re interested in innovative thinking, you’ll want to understand the relevance of these cutting-edge disciplines.
3. The final chapter of Smart World contains a series of practical suggestions about how to achieve breakthrough creativity in business organizations, including how to see the future before it arrives, read the world, and jump to a more powerful box than the one you’re currently thinking in.
4. In talking about creativity, you’ll be able to impress your friends and colleagues with concepts like fitness loops, the strength of weak ties, and the law of minimal effort.
5. Think true creative leaps are the stuff of genius? You need to understand first, that there are two types of genius, and second, that what mostly matters is not sheer smarts but the ability to find the right idea-space.
6. Ever wonder how Steve Jobs does it? You’ll discover the answer in Smart World. (Hint: see Reason #5.)
7. So what does it mean to say we live in a smart world anyway, and what’s that got to do with the concept of the extended mind? It’s time you found out.
8. Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, got an obituary in the Economist and a front-page notice in the New York Times. Discover why she deserved them.
9. Linear analytical thinking is so 20th century. The new focus is on developing the four 'i's: intelligence, imagination, intuition, and insight. You’ll learn here how closely they’re linked together.  
10. Smart World is full of great stories, and not just about business breakthroughs. You’ll learn how Picasso set out on the path to Cubism, how Francis Crick got a key idea about DNA from sculpting, where Frank Gehry finds his inspiration, and what Gutenberg’s real breakthrough was (it wasn’t printing with movable type - the Chinese got there first).

Richard Ogle is Chief Scientist at KnowledgePassion, Inc. and author of Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas, published by Marshall Cavendish.

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