University of Chicago Press Creativity on Demand – The Dilemmas of Innovation in an Accelerated Age

Review "Creativity on Demand approaches innovation as something that consultancies sell to companies that think that they need it if they are to stay ahead of the pack, or at least not fall behind. The volume, then, is not about what innovation is in any neutral sense, but is about what those consultancies advertise: a concept of what the innovative company is and a set of courses that teach people how to innovate and companies how to encourage it. . . . This is an intriguing analysis of an important aspect of contemporary business beliefs and practices."-- "Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute""Creativity on Demand is an excellent contribution to the subfields of anthropology of work, business anthropology, and economic anthropology."-- "Anthropos""Creativity on Demand shines an ethnographic light on the ceaseless production of newness as a quality of contemporary 'fast' capitalism. Wilf's work with innovation consultants is an important contribution to anthropological and other critical studies of business."-- "Andrew Orta, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign""Attentive, engaging, and highly innovative, Creativity on Demand brings an acute ethnographic sensibility to bear on the making of the 'new' in contemporary corporate life, showing us, in the process, how anthropology can help us better understand our present-day condition. This is a singularly thought-provoking read."-- "Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz""I've been waiting for years for a book like this to come along. Using an approach that neither celebrates innovation nor dismisses it, Creativity on Demand is the first extended critical exploration of a concept with a lot of social force behind it, but--until now--not much ethnographic light illuminating its inner workings. Anyone interested in the political economy of operationalized creativity will find something to run with in this book."-- "Keith Murphy, University of California, Irvine""Wilf opens the vast world of innovation consulting in today's capitalism to anthropological analysis. Rather than simply repeat, for instance, the common story of how 3M accidentally invented the wildly successful Post-it Note, Wilf explores a world in which consulting firms use the Post-it example, along with dozens of actual Post-its of various shapes and sizes, in their attempts to foster intentional, routine creativity among their corporate clients. By carefully unpacking workshop interactions, how-to guides, and much more, Wilf shows that innovation consulting has become a central cultural logic of contemporary capitalism, a practice that firms often believe they cannot survive without, even as they just as often doubt its efficacy. While the analysis is sophisticated throughout, ranging widely through theories of cultural change, commodity fetishism, language practices, and more, the main points will be quite understandable to less theoretically inclined readers interested in the actual practice (as opposed to insistent ideologies) of 21st-century capitalism. Creativity on Demand is a useful addition to scholarship and courses in a number of fields beyond anthropology, including design, management, and political economy."-- "CHOICE" Product Description Business consultants everywhere preach the benefits of innovation--and promise to help businesses reap them. A trendy industry, this type of consulting is centered around courses, workshops, books, and conferences, all claiming to hold the secrets of success. But what kind of promises does the notion of innovation entail? What is it about the ideology and practice of business innovation that has made these consulting firms so successful at selling their services to everyone from small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies? Most importantly, what does business innovation actually mean for work and our economy in general in 2019? In Creativity on Demand, cultural anthropologist Eitan Wilf seeks to answer these questions by returnin