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sariene's review against another edition
2.0
Didn't finish this. Too much pseudoscience to wade through
swetzel9's review against another edition
2.0
If this book was only on the topic of Biomimicry, it would have probably rated higher. That's a fascinating topic and would be a great deep dive to get into. The bits in the book that are straightforward on how technology can be designed to mimic nature-derived designs are the most interesting parts. Unfortunately it feels like the book skims the surface of that, and instead describes the author's own background along with his experience in dealing with starting a company that bases its technology on Biomimicry. I'm not planning on starting a company that does that, so dealing with the biases traditional companies have against nonstandard tech reads more like the author bemoaning why everyone won't just listen to him. Its more memoir than science book, and that's not really what I was hoping to read.
rsteve388's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
This was an interesting read and I learned a lot, I would have liked less business and more science and thought the book could have been two hours shorter and it would have been excellent.
jessferg's review against another edition
2.0
This is the second book on nature and its relevance to the business world that I've read in the past few months and although this one had some more interesting info than the other (Smart Swarm) I still find these books to fall flat.
There is a lot of interesting trivia but you must wade through this weird mix of the author's personal anecdotes and his own company's innovations, ideas and experiences to get to them.
I'm not sure there really is an overall direction to this book - it seems to have started as a list of ideas for products that can be made by imitating nature. The ideas aren't bad - some are downright interesting (especially, to me, the medical implications.) The formatting, however is just bad and the personal stories don't flow into the topic at hand the way they should.
The discussion/interviews that deal with Harman's and other companies' struggles to bring products to the marketplace may be interesting to others in industry but I just couldn't find any decent lessons there: We tried and we tried and we tried and we failed - but we won't give up because we know we're right. Not the most encouraging mantra.
Maybe I'm just very far removed from it at this point, but I can't picture the executive who would find this to be full of new ideas, inspirational messages or be charmed by Harman's "wild" stories.
There is a lot of interesting trivia but you must wade through this weird mix of the author's personal anecdotes and his own company's innovations, ideas and experiences to get to them.
I'm not sure there really is an overall direction to this book - it seems to have started as a list of ideas for products that can be made by imitating nature. The ideas aren't bad - some are downright interesting (especially, to me, the medical implications.) The formatting, however is just bad and the personal stories don't flow into the topic at hand the way they should.
The discussion/interviews that deal with Harman's and other companies' struggles to bring products to the marketplace may be interesting to others in industry but I just couldn't find any decent lessons there: We tried and we tried and we tried and we failed - but we won't give up because we know we're right. Not the most encouraging mantra.
Maybe I'm just very far removed from it at this point, but I can't picture the executive who would find this to be full of new ideas, inspirational messages or be charmed by Harman's "wild" stories.
citizenkahn's review
4.0
Biomimicry holds great promise and the artist clearly has some deep experience. Parts of this book show a deep passion with excellent description. Other parts felt distant, like an internet search. Still a solid read with very interesting insights.
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