21A

21A- Reading Reflection No. 2



Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker

1.      What was the general theme or argument of the book?

a.      The general message that Peter Drucker was trying to convey is that innovation and entrepreneurship are disciplines. They are categories of knowledge that must be learned. The whole book focuses on the behavior and decisions of entrepreneurs. I feel that this is a book stating that entrepreneurship can be taught, and anyone can learn.

2.      How did the book, in your opinion, connect and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

a.      In the first part of the book, Drucker claims that entrepreneurs simply exploit changes in order to provide a new service or product. This lines up exactly with what we learned the first part of the semester when we identified bugs, problems, and changes. However, in addition to what we talked about in our class already, Drucker mentioned that it is good to start small and simple with innovation and grow from there. Essentially he is saying to not be too ambitious right away.

b.      Additionally, part 2 of his book was about managing and growing a new business. We discussed these aspects when we covered the sections on organizational culture and how to get people to want to work for you, a topic that has been covered in recent weeks.

c.      Drucker also mentions how it is important to find your niche in the market, just as we learned when we did the assessment of our target customer group and our customer avatar assignment.

3.      If you had to design an assignment for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

a.      One of the biggest quotes of this book to me is, “Systematic innovation therefore consists in the purposeful and organized search for changes, and in the systematic analysis of the opportunities such changes might offer for economic or social innovation.”

b.      In response to this I would have an assignment split into two separate weekly posts. The first week I would have students find and explain in-depth 3-4 changes in the landscape, rules, or tendencies around their campus/town. The next week I would have them choose the change they want to exploit and write about 2-3 solutions or products/services that would be successful because of the recent change.

c.      This would show how large changes are to the entrepreneurship process.

4.      What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

a.      In this book I had a huge aha moment in relation to entrepreneurship. The first is when Drucker stated, “Entrepreneurship is “risky” mainly  because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.” This was a surprise to me because it explained why we are doing our weekly exercises and what this class is really doing for me. I’m not simply learning about the entrepreneurship process, but rather how to be an Entrepreneur. I am learning all the necessary skills that entrepreneurs will need to be successful. By being in this class and “learning what I am doing” per say, I am diminishing the risk of entrepreneurship.