Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking

Serial entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow delves into the reasons why some people and organizations are able to achieve incredible things in implausibly short time frames, showing how each of us can use these "smartcuts" to rethink convention and accelerate success.

In every era, innovators from art to science to business have used what psychologists call "lateral thinking" to find better routes to stunning accomplishments. Smartcuts shows how they bucked the norm--and how the rest of us can too. Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn multiplication tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one.

Smartcuts tells the stories of people who dared to work differently and lays out practical takeaways for the rest of us. It's about applying entrepreneurial and technological concepts to success in life and work, and how, by emulation, we too can leapfrog competitors, grow businesses, and fix society's problems faster than we think.

Shane Snow is a New York City-based journalist and Web entrepreneur, and the cofounder and chief creative officer of the media technology company Contently. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. Snow contributes regularly to Wired magazine and Fast Company, and has written about innovation for numerous publications, including the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and Advertising Age. Snow is a sought-after speaker at technology and advertising summits, and writes for LinkedIn's Influencer program. His work in technology entrepreneurship has been recognized by the United Nations, the New York Times, Inc., Forbes, Details, and New York City's Economic Development Council.