Book Review: Why Not?

This book by two Yale professors, one a business school professor and the other a law school professor, says that most problems can be solved, and provides a method for solving them. It challenges you to solve whatever problem annoys you the most.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [October 23, 2003]

Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, authors of Why Not: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small, believe that many problems have obvious, non-technological solutions. For example, when too few students were contributing in class, Ayres reversed the norm, and asked students to raise their hands when they did not want to answer a question. Shy students found themselves contributing more often than before.

Although the book is filled with all sorts of ideas, many of them are telecoms-related. Nalebuff is particularly familiar with telecoms issues, and testified to the FCC last year about how the FCC might make the industry healthier.

Ideas the authors describe that are relevant to ISPs include:

Why not have firms call you back rather than have you wait on hold?

For Internet call waiting, why not have a virtual receptionist who sends a message saying who's on the other line? (Like some of the good ideas in the book, this has been implemented, in this case by Callwave and Pagoo.)

If the ILEC has pricing power, why not give CLECs a brief "patent" on the introduction of a lower price? (The book notes that in the early 1990s, the FCC ruled that AT&T had to give 120 days notice before changing its price, while Sprint and MCI were allowed to change prices with one day's notice.)

Challenging thoughts
But the core promise of the book is far more than interesting ideas. The book aims to enable anyone to do better original thinking by providing a few simple thought exercises. They even suggest thinking inside the box, a radical idea in an age where the accepted wisdom is that thinking must be done outside the box. The authors note, "at first, this advice seems to contradict popular creativity mantras. 'There are no wrong answers.' 'Consider all options.' 'Break the boundaries that prevent you from innovating.'"

However, the authors note, "not all boundaries should be broken. Some boundaries are real and need to be respected. By better understanding what the real boundaries are, we can better identify the ones we artificially impose."

Like many statements in the book, this is a direct challenge to received wisdom, and the challenge is useful. Among the blurbs is one from Reed Hundt, former chairman of the FCC, who writes, "Why Not? is a terrific read. It is chockablock not with mere heuristics, but authentically interesting innovations. Many are wise; all are worth thinking about. And their ideas grow out of a disciplined effort to force creative thinking."

Disciplined creativity is urgently needed in the telecommunications industry.

— End