James Dyson

Such a riveting read! I loved hearing from James Dyson as this cross between a designer, engineer and businessman (more so the first two). The history behind his own upbringing and the founding of the Dyson company (and the Dual Cyclone vacuum model) was also suspenseful read. The man really is in his own words, made of 'doggedness'.

This book made me realise that engineering and design need not be so mutually exclusive. Indeed, design in particular is far more broad than what my narrow view of it was. Then there's Dyson's trial and error 'Edisonian approach' of empirical learning - investigating from a hands on and first principles approach. A person could potentially learn all they needed to of an area of invention by tinkering around themselves rather than first studying heavy theory. This was pretty inspiring.

Dyson is quite critical of British industry throughout the book but I could see many of the criticisms relevant to most of the world. Among them paramount are: of businesses' financial fixation with 'short term-ism' rather than long term incremental advancement, and the problematic cultural enamourment with 'flashes of brilliance' rather than long steady diligent hard work or 'doggedness'. Considering it's been 25 years, I wonder how things have changed in his view.

I wanted to read this primarily to gain inspiration and understanding of entrepreneurship from a product, engineering and mechanical confluence. On this front, the book was outstanding. Definitely recommend to those who are interested in any of these areas. My next read Inshallah will be Mr Dyson's newly published Invention: A Life and I'm hopeful it'd be just as great.


… (mere)

I read James Dyson’s biography in 3 days. It is that good. Of particular interest to my readers will be chapter 2, where he just skewers the public education system in England. It was interesting that he successfully designed several products prior to his vacuum, but poor legal and ownership decisions led to him not reaping the financial rewards that should have come his way. Also interesting was the legal battle with Amway, who stole his design (I knew they were evil), and utter lack of creativity from the big name manufacturers that just could not conceive of a vacuum without a bag. Or more likely, couldn’t fathom a business without the highly profitable business of selling vacuum cleaner bags. The book is also quite inspirational if you are itching to build a better something, and I think it will apply equally regardless of if the something is a website, or a consumer product.… (mere)

The story told here, an autobiography, is one of the most inspiring that I've read in a long time. Dyson is an inventor and industrial designer who has taken his bagless vacuum cleaner from the garage to a huge enterprise. I loved this story and wound up really admiring the man. His distinctive approach to industrial design, his perseverance and gutsy self confidence enabled him to show that even in the world of huge multinationals, with all their central research laboratories, there are still opportunities for the lone inventor to make it, big-time.

I especially enjoyed the part about the early development of the machine, in which he made something like one version per day for over three years, varying things one at a time, measuring everything to exhaustion, all the while sinking further and further into debt. Edisonian it was, but sometimes that is the only way--the quest for the quick breakthrough emphasized by modern industrial managers can be a real obstacle to progress. I've seen it at work first-hand.

The book is rather lavishly produced with ten pages of glossy photos, many of them in color, supplemented by many sketches and drawings. The big margins and the attractive typeface on acid-free paper combine to make a very pretty book, worth owning.

This is the sort of book that once you put it down, you feel better about the world, the striving of man-the-builder, and realize that, even in England, things can get better.… (mere)