Synopses & Reviews
How do we know if a hot new technology will succeed or fail? Most of us, even experts, get it wrong all the time. We depend more than we realize on wishful thinking and romanticized ideas of history. In the new paperback edition of this fascinating book, a book that has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, Slashdot.org, Lifehacker.com and in The New York Times, bestselling author Scott Berkun pulls the best lessons from the history of innovation, including the recent software and web age, to reveal powerful and suprising truths about how ideas become successful innovations -- truths people can easily apply to the challenges of today. Through his entertaining and insightful explanations of the inherent patterns in how Einsteins discovered E=mc2 or Tim Berner Lees developed the idea of the world wide web, you will see how to develop existing knowledge into new innovations.
Each entertaining chapter centers on breaking apart a powerful myth, popular in the business world despite it's lack of substance. Through Berkun's extensive research into the truth about innovations in technology, business and science, youll learn lessons from the expensive failures and dramatic successes of innovations past, and understand how innovators achieved what they did -- and what you need to do to be an innovator yourself. You'll discover:
- Why problems are more important than solutions
- How the good innovation is the enemy of the great
- Why children are more creative than your co-workers
- Why epiphanies and breakthroughs always take time
- How all stories of innovations are distorted by the history effect
- How to overcome peoples resistance to new ideas
- Why the best idea doesnt often win
The paperback edition includes four new chapters, focused on appling the lessons from the original book, and helping you develop your skills in creative thinking, pitching ideas, and staying motivated.
"For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still dont have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while were satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong."
-- Scott Berkun, from the text
"Berkun sets us free to change the world."
-- Guy Kawasaki, author of Art of the Start
Scott was a manager at Microsoft from 1994-2003, on projects including v1-5 (not 6) of Internet Explorer. He is the author of three bestselling books, Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation and Confessions of a Public Speaker. He works full time as a writer and speaker, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes magazine, The Economist, The Washington Post, Wired magazine, National Public Radio and other media. He regularly contributes to Harvard Business Review and Bloomberg Businessweek, has taught creative thinking at the University of Washington, and has appeared as an innovation and management expert on MSNBC and on CNBC. He writes frequently on innovation and creative thinking at his blog: scottberkun.com and tweets at @berkun.
Review
"Insightful, inspiring, evocative, and just plain fun to read it's totally great." John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist of Xerox, and Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC); current Chief of Confusion
Review
"Small, simple, powerful: an innovative book about innovation." Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group, Northwestern University; author of Emotional Design and Design of Everyday Things
Review
"The naked truth about innovation is ugly, funny, and eye-opening, but it sure isn't what most of us have come to believe. With this book, Berkun sets us free to try to change the world unencumbered with misconceptions about how innovation happens." Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start
Review
"Brimming with insights and historical examples, Berkun's book not only debunks widely held myths about innovation but also points the ways toward making your new ideas stick. Even in today's ultra-busy commercial world, reading this book will be time well spent." Tom Kelley, GM, IDEO; author of The Ten Faces of Innovation
Review
"This book cuts through the hype, analyzes what is essential, and more importantly, what is not. You will leave with a thorough understanding of what really drives innovation." Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon.com
Review
"I loved this book. It's an easy-to-read playbook for anyone wanting to lead and manage positive change in their business." Frank McDermott, Marketing Manager, EMI Music
Synopsis
Former Microsoft manager and bestselling author Berkun takes a careful look at the history of innovation, including the recent years of the software and Internet age, to reveal that what the public knows about innovation is wrong.
Synopsis
How do you know whether a hot technology will succeed or fail? Or where the next big idea will come from? The best answers come not from the popular myths we tell about innovation, but instead from time-tested truths that explain how we've made it this far. This book shows the way.
In The Myths of Innovation, bestselling author Scott Berkun takes a careful look at innovation history, including the software and Internet Age, to reveal how ideas truly become successful innovations truths that people can apply to today's challenges. Using dozens of examples from the history of technology, business, and the arts, you'll learn how to convert the knowledge you have into ideas that can change the world.
- Why all innovation is a collaborative process
- How innovation depends on persuasion
- Why problems are more important than solutions
- How the good innovation is the enemy of the great
- Why the biggest challenge is knowing when it's good enough
"For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still don't have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while we're satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong." Scott Berkun, from the text.
Synopsis
How do you determine whether a hot new technology will succeed or fail? Or where the next big idea will come from? If you subscribe to the popular myths of innovation, it's impossible to answer these questions. Our beliefs about how new ideas come about are based on wishful thinking and romanticized ideas of history -- like the story of how Newton discovered gravity when an apple hit him on the head.
In the new paperback edition of The Myths of Innovation, bestselling author Scott Berkun takes a careful look at the history of innovation, including the recent software and Internet age, to reveal powerful truths about how ideas become successful innovations -- truths that people can apply to the challenges of the present day. By understanding how Einstein's discovery of E=mc2 or Tim Berner Lee's creation of the Web were based on the re-use of work done by others, you will see new ways to develop existing knowledge into new innovations.
Each entertaining chapter centers on breaking apart a powerful myth. Through Berkun's extensive research into the truth about past innovations in technology, business and science, you'll learn lessons from the expensive failures and dramatic successes of innovations past, and understand how innovators achieved what they did -- and what you need to do to be an innovator yourself. You'll discover:
- Why breakthrough thinking takes time
- How all stories of innovations are distorted by the history effect
- How to overcome people's resistance to new ideas
- Why all innovation is a collaborative process
- How innovation depends on persuasion
- Why problems are more important than solutions
- How the good innovation is the enemy of the great
- Why the biggest challenge is knowing when it's good enough
Synopsis
'
Finding cool languages, tools, or development techniques is easy-new ones are popping up every day. Convincing co-workers to adopt them is the hard part. The problem is political, and in political fights, logic doesn\'t win for logic\'s sake. Hard evidence of a superior solution is not enough. But that reality can be tough for programmers to overcome.
In Driving Technical Change: Why People On Your Team Don\'t Act on Good Ideas, and How to Convince Them They Should, Adobe software evangelist Terrence Ryan breaks down the patterns and types of resistance technologists face in many organizations.
You\'ll get a rich understanding of what blocks users from accepting your solutions. From that, you\'ll get techniques for dismantling their objections-without becoming some kind of technocratic Machiavelli.
In Part I, Ryan clearly defines the problem. Then in Part II, he presents \"resistance patterns\"-there\'s a pattern for each type of person resisting your technology, from The Uninformed to The Herd, The Cynic, The Burned, The Time Crunched, The Boss, and The Irrational. In Part III, Ryan shares his battle-tested techniques for overcoming users\' objections. These build on expertise, communication, compromise, trust, publicity, and similar factors. In Part IV, Ryan reveals strategies that put it all together-the patterns of resistance and the techniques for winning buy-in. This is the art of organizational politics.
In the end, change is a two-way street: In order to get your co-workers to stretch their technical skills, you\'ll have to stretch your soft skills. This book will help you make that stretch without compromising your resistance to playing politics. You can overcome resistance-however illogical-in a logical way.'
Synopsis
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In this new paperback edition of the classic bestseller, you\'ll be taken on a hilarious, fast-paced ride through the history of ideas. Author Scott Berkun will show you how to transcend the false stories that many business experts, scientists, and much of pop culture foolishly use to guide their thinking about how ideas change the world. With four new chapters on putting the ideas in the book to work, updated references and over 50 corrections and improvements, now is the time to get past the myths, and change the world.
You\'ll have fun while you learn:
- Where ideas come from
- The true history of history
- Why most people don\'t like ideas
- How great managers make ideas thrive
- The importance of problem finding
- The simple plan (new for paperback)
Since its initial publication, this classic bestseller has been discussed on NPR, MSNBC, CNBC, and at Yale University, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Google, Amazon.com, and other major media, corporations, and universities around the world. It has changed the way thousands of leaders and creators understand the world. Now in an updated and expanded paperback edition, it\'s a fantastic time to explore or rediscover this powerful view of the world of ideas.
\"Sets us free to try and change the world.\" --Guy Kawasaki, Author of Art of The Start
\"Small, simple, powerful: an innovative book about innovation.\" --Don Norman, author of Design of Everyday Things
\"Insightful, inspiring, evocative, and just plain fun to read. It\'s totally great.\" --John Seely Brown, Former Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
\"Methodically and entertainingly dismantling the cliches that surround the process of innovation.\" --Scott Rosenberg, author of Dreaming in Code; cofounder of Salon.com
\"Will inspire you to come up with breakthrough ideas of your own.\" --Alan Cooper, Father of Visual Basic and author of The Inmates are Running the Asylum
\"Brimming with insights and historical examples, Berkun\'s book not only debunks widely held myths about innovation, it also points the ways toward making your new ideas stick.\" --Tom Kelley, GM, IDEO; author of The Ten Faces of Innovation'
Video
About the Author
Scott Berkun worked on the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft from 1994-1999 and left the company in 2003 with the goal of writing enough books to fill a shelf. The Myths of Innovation is his second book: he wrote the best seller, The Art of Project Management (O'Reilly 2005). He makes a living writing, teaching and speaking. He teaches a graduate course in creative thinking at the University of Washington, runs the sacred places architecture tour at NYC's GEL conference, and writes about innovation, design and management at www.scottberkun.com.
Table of Contents
Photo credits; Chapter openers; Figures; Preface; The aims of this book; Assumptions I've made about you; The research accuracy commitment; How to use this book; Chapter 1: The myth of epiphany; 1 Ideas never stand alone; Chapter 2: We understand the history of innovation; 1 Why does history seem perfect?; 2 Evolution and innovation; Chapter 3: There is a method for innovation; 1 How innovations start; 2 The challenges of innovation; 3 The infinite paths of innovation; 4 Finding paths of innovation; Chapter 4: People love new ideas; 1 Managing the fears of innovation; 2 The list of negative things innovators hear; 3 The innovator's dilemma explained; 4 Frustration + innovation = entrepreneurship?; 5 How innovations gain adoption (the truth about ideas before their time); Chapter 5: The lone inventor; 1 The convenience of lone inventors; 2 The challenge of simultaneous invention; 3 The myth of the lone inventor; 4 Stepping stones: the origins of spreadsheets and E=mc2; Chapter 6: Good ideas are hard to find; 1 The dangerous life of ideas; 2 How to find good ideas; 3 Ideas and filters; Chapter 7: Your boss knows more about innovation than you; 1 The myth that managers know what to do; 2 Five challenges of managing innovation; Chapter 8: The best ideas win; 1 Why people believe the best wins; 2 The secondary factors of innovation; 3 Space, metrics, and Thomas Jefferson; 4 The goodness/adoption paradox; Chapter 9: Problems and solutions; 1 Problems as invitations; 2 Framing problems to help solve them; 3 The truth about serendipity; Chapter 10: Innovation is always good; 1 Measuring innovation: the goodness scale; 2 Innovations are unpredictable (DDT, automobiles, and the Internet); 3 Technology accelerates without discrimination; 4 The good and bad, the future and the past; Appendix A: Research and recommendations; A.1 Annotated bibliography; A.2 Ranked bibliography; A.3 Other research sources; Colophon;
Tech Q&A
Read the Tech Q&A with Scott Berkun