• It’s practically useful: Beyond the Obvious is written in a way that makes it easy to return to and refer to time and again. “A thoughtful yet practical guide to consistently generating innovation” from Publishers Weekly review of Beyond the Obvious.
• It’s focused on success: This is not another book written about how hard innovation is or some esoteric theory behind innovation. This book gives the reader the tools to be successful.
• It’s easy to comprehend: Beyond the Obvious is written in a clear, concise and easy to read manner.
• Benefit of experience: Phil McKinney lived in the innovation trenches everyday of his 9 year career as the CTO for Hewlett-Packard. In contrast to the flood of innovation consultants, this book is based on the real world of creating, driving and launching killer innovations.
• It includes how to’s: The book is well stocked with useful “how to’s” and take aways that you can apply immediately in your every day work.
• It has a good balance of theory and practical examples: Beyond the Obvious gets the balance right between giving the background on a concept and real-life examples.
• To move to the next stage: If you feel that you want to establish innovation within your organization, this book is backed up by a proven methodology in use at HP, Kroger and other companies and governments around the world.
• To spread the message: If you believe in the message that knowing how to be innovative is important for personal and organizational success, use this book to spread the word.
• It’s low risk and available now: You have the flexibility to try before you buy. Download Chapter 1 now.
• Send us your suggestion for Reason #10.

The book is based on the +6 years of content from the Killer Innovations podcast and +10 years from the blog. I was contacted in the Spring of 2010 by Marc Gerald at the Agency Group.  He followed my writings and encouraged me to consider writing a book.  With his teams help, we completed the book proposal in the Fall of 2010 and by the end of November 2010, we had a publisher (Hyperion).

The book is the first time I’ve formally published the killer questions. In fact, more than 50% of the questions in the book are brand new. I’ve edited them as needed to ensure the questions are appropriate for the broadest application (products, services, experiences, etc).

YES! The book presents examples of the approach being applied to products, services, experiences, supply chain and more coming from early stage start-ups all the way Fortune 50 companies. The book also shows the approach being used by governments to innovate such things as the K-12 educational system.

At the launch of the book (February 2012), it will be available worldwide in English. Translations are underway for Russia, China, Brazil and Japan. These translations will be available late in 2013. Information on future translations will be posted on the Facebook and Google+ pages for the book.