Book Review of the Fortnight – Why Not?

Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres’ “Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small,” now out in a new paperback edition, is a long-time favorite of mine. OK, it’s got a slightly hokey title. Who cares? In an increasingly competitive world, you’ve got to do what you can to provide your customers with solutions that meet their needs. And then there’s the minor detail of how to capture their attention so they know you’ve got the right solution. If you could rely on your competition failing miserably everytime (a very, very poor strategy), you wouldn’t need new ways to be solve that problem. While “Why Not?” isn’t a perfect book, (it’s a little pedantic at points and some of its solutions appear, at first pass, a bit simplistic), it provides useful strategies and techniques that work across just about any type of challenge you might find yourself facing. For about 10 bucks, you can’t beat that.