Carleton’s Regional Carls Program

The Carleton Business Book Club

Friday, October 7, 2011
7:30 to 8:45 a.m. 

Panera at Sherman & Church Streets, Evanston
(In the meeting room)

You Whiled the Summer Away Reading Trashy Novels –
It’s Time to Get Back to Business!

What Generates Big Ideas? It’s the Little Things

Many of us tend to think that great advances occur as a result of (a) light bulb moments -- epiphanies, often by geniuses or highly creative individuals, or (b) rigorous application of the scientific method – forming and then methodically testing hypotheses.  In his book Little Bets, author Peter Sims argues that many breakthrough results instead occur when actors take careful, small, experimental steps.  Based on more than 200 interviews with a diverse group of successful artists, architects, business-persons and others, Sims shows how these people have achieved breakthroughs not by beginning with a formalized concept or a final project in mind, but by making and learning from a series of little bets about what might be a good direction.  As these individuals learn from many little failures and from small but important successes, they discover unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes.

Join the Carleton Business Book Club at its October monthly meeting to expand your notion of innovation.

This month's book - Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, by Peter Sims (2011).

To ease us back in, this book is a 160-page quick read!

You are welcome to invite friends to read the book and participate in the conversation, Carleton alums or not.

Don Rawitsch ’72