- Paperback: 140 pages
- Publisher: Profile Books; New edition edition (3 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1861975686
- ISBN-13: 978-1861975683
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,629,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Big Idea
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Like the best schemes, Robert Jones' big idea is essentially simple: "The things people buy--products and services--are becoming more and more similar as it becomes increasingly easy for one company to copy another's technological advantage. This has a simple but devastating consequence: in the absence of economic differences, emotional logic will become the single most important business driver". That sofa you bought isn't just something to sit on while you watch the TV, it's a concept: a bundle of emotional cues and value statements representing your core beliefs.
Sound familiar? Stick with it, Jones' thinking is intuitive and definitions do blur, but his "big ideas" are distinct from brands or organisational vision.
What organisations started to look for [at the end of the 1990s] was something deeper than brand. Something that, unlike product idea or business model, would be rich and serious. And something that, unlike vision or brand, would appeal to people inside and outside the organisation equally: something they could share.And that's the crux of it. Big ideas are the promises businesses communicate about themselves totally, both internally to their employees and externally to their customers and shareholders. A big idea says, "this is what we stand for, join us if you share our ideals". Jones offers insight into how big ideas emerge and the active, organic way they are defined and shaped by products and responses. "The journey to discover a big idea is a strange experience", he says, "very rarely do organisations get straight there".
Robert Jones has written a wonderful book, packed with insight and bursting with energy, vision and inspiration. The Big Idea joins Beautiful Corporations and Corporate Religion in having explored the new intimacies of the organisational space and effectively vocalised the power of emotion. --Iain Campbell --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
‘An interesting and useful book.’
Business Age
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Visit the London headquarters of Orange, and the first thing you see is a banner over reception saying 'hello' in a dozen different languages. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Visit the London headquarters of Orange, and the first thing you see is a banner over reception saying 'hello' in a dozen different languages. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I must admit at first that I thought this book was shaping up to be an interesting addition to brand led business thinking. However, once you get through the veneer of a good writing style, you realise that nothing new is really said. Jones sadly has merely restated the thinking of emotional purposes for brands and businesses, first expressed by Dave Packard, and far better analysed by Collins and Porras in 'Built to Last'. This sense of disappointment was only heightened at the end by the catalogue of big ideas which, at best, are lazy. The big idea in this book is sadly all style and very little substance.
Format:Paperback
Authored by a director of Wolff Olins, the corporate identity group, The Big Idea looks at what it is that successful companies possess more than vision, brand, development and delivery excellence. Using examples from 50 companies including Amazon, Apple, First Direct, GO, Orange and Pret a Manger, this is a provocative and insightful read.
Format:Hardcover
It is said that the simple ideas, are the most profound. Robert Jones manages to cut through the haze of marketing guff and get down to a single point of focus - "The Big Idea". The book reads well and although a little repetitive, uses great examples to reinforce and substatntiate his thoughts. When you read this book in conjunction with other "brand" text books, (like from Aaker and Reis) you realise the clarity and focus this book can bring to your thought process on branding and big business strategy. Definetly worth a read - Take from it what you want and leave what you do not....
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Quite fluent in style, but derivative and repetitive
Jones has a certain facility with words, and his premise is superficially impressive. How will companies break through the noise of competition to seize our attention and our... Read more
Published on 15 May 2002
Fascinating, insightful, a real 'must-read'
Very few books are capable of profoundly changing the way you view things. This is one of them. The beauty of Robert Jones' 'big idea' is to find yourself reading not just as the... Read more
Published on 12 April 2002 by Dan Gray
One of the best business books I'ver ever read
We're in a new millennium and we need some new thinking, a new philosophy of business. The Big Idea is a deceptively simple book with ideas which hit you between the eyes with... Read more
Published on 24 Oct 2001
Inspiring and intelligent
If you're looking for a quick hit, forget it. This book works quietly to communicate its potent message. Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2001 by Mr. R. Horberry
Highly recommended
I've read the most recent reveiw of The Big Idea and I disagree with it completely. I found this book inspirational. Read more
Published on 17 Jan 2001 by james@donel.demon.co.uk
a good idea in need of a follow-through
This is indeed a well-written book which captures the current zeitgeist of competing on emotions and ideas, but for those who have already got that point there's little here on... Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2000 by raster100@hotmail.com
profound and thought-provoking, an essential read
This is not just another book about business; it's about all organisations and how and why they are as they are, and do as they do. Read more
Published on 31 Oct 2000
Very inspiring, Takes no time to read. Cannot put down.
This book is one of the most unusual business books I have come across and I am an avid business book reader. Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2000
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