Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking

Description

From art to science to business, innovators in every era have used what psychologists call "lateral thinking" to find better routes to stunning accomplishments. Smartcuts shows how they bucked the norm-and how the rest of us can, too. Award-winning entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn multiplication tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one. Smartcuts tells the stories of people who dared to work differently and lays out practical takeaways for the rest of us. It's about applying entrepreneurial and technological concepts to success in life and work, and how, by emulation, we too can leapfrog competitors, grow businesses, and fix society's problems faster than we think.

Shane Snow is an entrepreneur and hacker-journalist based in New York City. In 2010, he co-founded Contently Inc., which grew to more than $30 million in its first three years. He writes about technology for WIRED Magazine, and is known nationwide for speaking about the future of media and writing about innovation for Fast Company, The Washington Post, and LinkedIn's Influencer program alongside Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, and Richard Branson-yet, just four years before he was living in Hawaii and didn't own a pair of shoes. Snow has been named one of Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 Media Innovators, Inc. Magazine's 30 Under 30 "Coolest Entrepreneurs", and Folio's 15 Under 30 Magazine Innovators. A Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, his work has been featured in The New York Times, GQ, MTV, and Time.

"As fascinating as it is fun, Smartcuts is an engaging journey through the types of lateral thinking and creative strategies that so often underlie success." -- Maria Konnikova, New York Times bestselling author of Mastermind "Smartcuts solves a major mystery, illuminating how visionaries and pioneers find faster ways to achieve their goals. With spellbinding stories and relevant research, Shane Snow has delivered one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking books of the year." -- --Adam Grant, Wharton professor and author of Give and Take "Smartcuts is surprising and awesome. It's Malcolm Gladwell meets Tim Ferriss. Part Good to Great, part McGuyver, this is a book every 21st century entrepreneur should read." -- Scott Gerber, Founder, Young Entrepreneurs Council "Shane is living proof that Smartcuts work. He hacked his way into Fast Company, Wired and Ad Age, built a multi-million dollar startup by age 30, and now he's written his first of what I'm sure will be many excellent books. Follow this guy!" -- --Ryan Holiday, bestselling author of Trust Me I'm Lying and The Obstacle Is The Way "Shane Snow is a fresh and future-thinking voice in today's tumultuous business climate. You must read Smartcuts if you are a social entrepreneur or would like to be one, because what Shane teaches us most of all is to be "bigger than just business." -- --Soraya Darabi, Co-founder of Zady and Foodspotting "[Smartcuts] is a manifesto for success for those who do not want to toil away unnoticed." -- Financial Times "It's worth its weight in 10 airport business books, in part because Snow is such a clear, beautiful writer who does not succumb to aphorism and business gobbledygook." -- New York Times Insider