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The Myths of Innovation
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List Price: $15.99
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You Save: $ 15.99 (100%)
Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 303
EAN: 9780596521844
ISBN: 0596521847
Label: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: 2008-05-15
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Studio: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: An absolute must read for scientists and engineers
Comment: At this point I can't say much that the other reviewers haven't already. Berkun makes a case study out of innovators and their innovations, exposing the real history behind the developments. There is no such thing as "Eureka!"...breakthroughs occur only after many long hours of development have been racked up (even in such "accidental" discoveries like the microwave oven), from you and all of your predecessors, all the way back to when we first crawled out of the ocean.
So much surrounding innovation is beyond the control of the innovator. Berkun takes 10 myths and picks them apart, piece by piece....this is an absolute must read for people in technical fields as well as basement inventors. It should set you straight before you go off and (foolishly) try to change the world with a (insert fancy new widget here). I found the book to be humorous and refreshing. I wish I would have come across this book before I started my graduate education, it would have changed my temperament to be more realistic when it comes to cutting-edge research at an earlier time (I got there anyway, but now I am old and cynical).
And for the record, this is not a cookbook for innovation. There is no such thing...and reading this book should explain to you why. Also, I second the comment about the colophon being worth the price of the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Myths of Innovation
Comment: A very infomative and entertaining read. The book opens your eyes to a lot of things you usually take foregranted.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: This book is not all that. Its just a bunch of meandering ramblings from a guy whose main qualification seems to be that he worked on Internet Explorer at Microsoft. It creates just as many rah rah myths as it challenges. It is poorly written, the author is wholly devoid of any gravitas, and thus does not offer many coherent or believable insights. I suppose the bibliography is useful, for finding a real book, which this one is not.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for people working to innovate, and even for those curious or unsure about what innovation means or how to do it
Comment: I recommend Scott Berkun's book The Myths of Innovation to everyone willing to trade a couple hours of reading and thinking for a deeper understanding of what's holding you back in your creative endeavours, and some alternatives to help you get out of your rut.
In Myths Scott lists 10 myths, one per chapter, which hamper people from innovating. His chapters begin by explaining some important things we've been lead to believe about inventing and innovation simply by living in our culture (U.S.A.). Those myths conspire to disempower people who do want to change things: a theme that repeats as Scott examines each myth in turn. After describing these implicit, limiting, and usually deeply ingrained memes Scott gives different perspectives for each myth including tales about popular people and inventions that may surprise you.
At first glance the chapters seemed more management-centric than I'd expected. However unless you are inventing in isolation (which cannot happen: see Chapter 5) and never need interact with other people, each of Scott's insights could be important to you, too. After all innovation doesn't just mean coming up with a patentable object to sell: any change to how people work, play, or view the world can be innovative and have similar challenges.
This was a great book for me since I've had hundreds of ideas of things to fix or create, but I hadn't realized how many damaging cultural myths about innovation I had accepted over the years. Even though Scott's writing and examples make the book easily readable and it is small enough to finish in a few hours, I took several breaks while devouring Myths and reread parts so I could absorb all the new information presented.
The Myths of Innovationis a fairly short book, but with Scott's writing that means it is packed with interesting content and clearly explains both myths and truths about innovation. Scott's ideas and the book's layout, black-and-white photos and illustrations, and extras like a colophon, ranked bibliography, and a useful index mean it is easy to reference, inviting to reread, and a springboard to free your own innovation.
Enjoy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: I'm a Scott Berkun fan, but this one didn't do it for me.
Comment: I really liked Art of Project Management so had high expectation for this book. It took me a while to get engaged into this one, and while there are lots of interesting tidbits, I really didn't find something that sticks to my ribs. Filling, but not satisfying.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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
"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.
Scott Berkun is well-versed in the business of innovation. A member of the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft from 1994-1999, he wrote the 2008 bestseller, Making Things Happen (O'Reilly).
"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
"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
"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
"Small, simple, powerful: an innovative book about innovation."
-- Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group, Northwestern University; author of Emotional Design and Design of Everyday Things
"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
"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
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