Tina Seelig was teaching an entrepreneurship course at Stanford when she wrote the book, so the initial chapter about how her students were given a measly $5 and a weekend to create value and earn some bucks was the most exhilarating and breathtaking. Apparently, the most successful groups didn’t even use that $5 at all, which shatters the illusion that you need capital to strike it big. She made a compelling case about how we should examine our available non-monetary resources through fresh eyes and convert them to valuable currencies.

The next thing that captured my imagination was a guy called John Stigvelbout. He missed out on the deadline to apply to grad school, so he wrote a letter of reference written by a professor claiming to be John’s best friend and cell mate in prison. Not sure if John did this as a calculated effort or a last-ditch move - but it worked. The people in the admissions office were curious about him and invited him to visit them. With the hype preceding him, John just had to appear poised to impress them. Which he did in spades. The lesson I took away is: be unorthodox and quirky enough such that people will be intrigued by you. There is hope for this rebel to pave his way!

Additionally, perhaps it was the fact that I had read “Work Rules!” before this, but I found Google’s A/B methodology quite attractive. Release two versions of a software and decide which approach is more effective. Technically, I could implement this in my instruction since I teach two Year 1 classes. So I can teach them in 2 separate ways and determine the method that is stickier. Though I doubt I have the bandwidth to carry out such experiments since I’m already falling behind in my work. Still, it’s an interesting idea to park in the recesses of my mind. Maybe it will marinate to something phenomenal in due time.

This book convinced me that creativity can be taught. She has an exercise in which groups are forced to look at the worst idea voted by other groups and polish it into something promising. Students extract the glimmer of potential within the “worst” idea and build up on it. Goes to show that no idea is truly a bad one beyond redemption.