| The Myths of Innovation | 
| Author: Scott Berkun
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $11.35
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (37 reviews)
Sales Rank: 22035
Format: Illustrated
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 0596527055
Dewey Decimal Number: 609
EAN: 9780596527051
ASIN: 0596527055
Publication Date: May 15, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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. "Insightful, inspiring, evocative, and just plain fun to read it's totally great." -- John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist of Xerox, andDirector, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARe; 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 "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 Scott Berkun knows innovation. A member of the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft from 1994-1999, he is a full-time author at www.scottberkun.com and wrote the 2005 bestseller, The Art of Project Management (O'Reilly). He also teaches creative thinking at the University of Washington.
Amazon.com Review
| Scott Berkun Discusses Innovation at Amazon.com Headquarters | | Scott Berkun, author of The Myths of Innovation and The Art of Project Management, visited Amazon.com to discuss "epiphany myths" and the realities--and effort--of implementing innovation in your own life and work. Watch the video: - High bandwidth
- Low bandwidth
Praise for The Myths of Innovation:
"?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
"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 |  |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 The Mythical Myths of Innovation December 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is structured as a set of chapters, each focusing on a supposed "myth of innovation" that the author then shoots down and explains why the myth isn't true.
The problem that I had was that I didn't believe in the myths in the first place. Instead, I felt that they were strawman arguments put up there to be easily disputed.
It would have been a heck of a lot more meaningful to me had I felt like he was challenging my thinking about the world. Instead, it seemed to me more that he was stating the obvious.
Because of this I was bored reading through this and felt like there was very little real content.
Are these *really* myths? Do people really believe these myths in the first place? Or are they mythical myths?
 An absolute must read for scientists and engineers October 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
The Myths of Innovation July 31, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
A very infomative and entertaining read. The book opens your eyes to a lot of things you usually take foregranted.
Disappointing June 23, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
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.
Excellent book for people working to innovate, and even for those curious or unsure about what innovation means or how to do it June 18, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
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!
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