How To Come Up With Great Ideas and Actually Make Them Happen Paperback – 2 Feb. 2015

Excellent book, definitely worth purchasing!

If you are thinking of stepping off the beaten path, or trying another path others have trod but is unfamiliar to you, this book is an invaluable guide and tool.The strategies and milestones Ewan writes of make sense and are straightforward to implement; however, they all require a challenging first step.Ideas like 'Yes, and...' rather than 'Yes, but...' are eye-opening in their simplicity and effectiveness.You have more than likely planned or presented something innovative only to be shot down with a barrage of reasons as to why it will not work or would not be helpful. Why not approach the idea from a different perspective, by asking for all of the reasons why it could fail, and solving those problems, first. This would a) engage the end users before the cat is out the bag and b) allow for a far more informed presentation.Living in Scotland since about 2000, this book resonates very strongly with my present situation and a lot of the ideas that he suggests are, in fact, reasons for why I took that first step.Recommended to educators, and innovators in general, who see a need for change but need a bit of support to achieve it.

There's a time to read a book (& newspaper). When I first received this self published paperback following a recommendation from Ian Quinlan, in his weekly newsletter, I was disappointed. First, there was a note on page 2 that the colour version was available from the website; at over ten quid for text only (ie no pics) I felt I should have had a link to a download. Second there was no index - I crave such - and the in-order references could have been calibrated by chapter or page number. So I flicked through the rest and felt at first glance that it was dated (ideas spread fast over the internet eg too much Richard Branson). I asked my Dad for a second opinion and he pointed out, after a cursory glance, that there were several blank pages - at 85 years I was being optimistic that he would read it.However, I returned to the book several times and decided to read it properly ie from the front. I am warming to it: I enjoy biographies and liked the initial chapters that describe how Ewan started out in his career giving views on such as Glow. It then morphs into a guide that reminded me of the big blue tome: How to introduce Windows 95 by Microsoft. Overall it seems to be a book aimed at school leaders that is posted to clients before his arrival (fair enough). I found the style less preachy than one of the prime references (page 163) which I followed up online: Transformative Innovation in Education: A Playbook for Pragmatic Visionaries; G. Leicester et al. The latter has a pointer to a game/kit to help develop strategy which reminded me of an outreach meeting with Education Scotland that my HeadTeacher wife had sent me to. The Islayan Ian Stewart (@ianstuart66) had ably orchestrated this with timed/structured/minuted precision and I wondered how Ewan with his East of Scotland roots would have compered such.In conclusion I had half bought the book to discover the story of a particular Scottish edupreneur but I also agree with what Ian says: " if you are understanding and designing learning, this is a book your thinking will benefit from"

Helpful and Practical: this book is full of ideas on how to come up with great ideas! I enjoyed this book immensely - straightforward with appropriate case studies that were used to inform and explain. I recommend this book to anyone at any level of educational leadership.