Here’s a brief summary of some tasty new treats in the Ruby lineup:

1. Learning Rails (Rails from the Outside In) by Simon St. Laurent and Edd Dumbill, published by O’Reilly Media (See Learning Rails book cover and O’Reilly catalog description here.)
2. Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts (Useful Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems) by Steve Pugh, published by No Starch Press (the Finest in Geek Entertainment). You can download a PDF of chapter 1, “General Purpose Utilities”.
3. Enterprise Recipes with Ruby and Rails by Maik Schmidt, published by Pragmatic Programmers
4. Programming Ruby 1.9 (The newly updated Pragmatic Programmers Guide, aka the Pick-Axe book), by Dave Thomas with Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt, published by The Pragmatic Programmers
5. Agile Web Development With Rails (Third Edition) by Sam Ruby, Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson with Leon Breedt, Mike Clark, Justin Gehtland, James Duncan Davidson, and Andreas Schwarz

I hope you are enjoying your summer reading as much as I am.  What new books are you reading?

Beautiful Bird

From the book entitled: “Beautiful Birds: Their Natural History — Including an account of their Structure, Habits,  Nidification, etc., etc.   Vol. II”

Published in 1855, from the manuscript of the late John Cotton,  author of:

• Flowers from Foreign Lands
• Flowers from the Holy Land
• Flowers and Heraldry
• Favorite Field Flowers

Etc., etc.

With twelve coloured plates, drawn and coloured by James Andrews.

Inside the front cover appears this adverstisement for the book:

The first volume of this work comprised an outline history of the Raptorial Birds, together with that of the Dentirostral tribe of the Insessorial Order. In the present we lay before our readers the remainder of the Insessorial Order, comprising the several Tribes, Fissirostres, Scansores, Tenuirostres, and Conirostres. The whole work will be completed by the publication of the third volume, which will comprehend the Orders Rasores, Grallatores, and Natatores: orders in which are placed several domestic and wild families well known and valued in this country. We, therefore, confidently expect that it will possess, for the majority of our readers, greater interest than the portions already published.

St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine was born on this day, November 13th, in the year 354 AD.  Augustine wrote many great writings (including City of God), but most revealing of his personal views (his blog about life), is his Confessions, which is an  account of his earlier life.

There are many online editions of Augustine’s Confessions, including the versions offered by Bartleby,  CCEL, Fordham University, and Google books. What follows is a brief excerpt from St. Augustine’s Confessions, the second book.

I WILL now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God. For love of Thy love I do it; reviewing my most wicked ways in the very bitterness of my remembrance, that Thou mayest grow sweet unto me (Thou sweetness never failing, Thou blissful and assured sweetness); and gathering me again out of that my dissipation, wherein I was torn piecemeal, while turned from Thee, the One Good, I lost myself among a multiplicity of things. For I even burnt in my youth heretofore, to be satiated in things below; and I dared to grow wild again, with these various and shadowy loves; my beauty consumed away, and I stank in Thine eyes; pleasing myself, and desirous to please in the eyes of men.

And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be beloved? but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship’s bright boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscene of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love from the fog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and sunk me in a gulf of flagitiousness. Thy wrath had gathered over me, and I knew it not. I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee, and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and further from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots of sorrows, with a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.

MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd ed.

Behind virtually every web application, there’s a database management system.

Ever used Facebook? Guess what? It runs on a (huge!) database. What about your favorite discussion forum? Are you into auto maintenance, fly fishing, or (if you’re like my wife) do you like to swap recipes, trade amusing anecdotes about your kids, or post blog articles? All database-driven.

Many of the most popular, thriving websites are database driven. Behind the scenes many Web 2.0 websites are running MySQL, Sun Microsystem‘s open source database. (There are other popular databases from Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM — but that’s another story.)

MySQL is the M in LAMP — the very popular Open Source web site platform/framework (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python). MySQL is the database used with WordPress (the software that runs this VVN blog). MySQL is the default database server used with Ruby on Rails.

If MySQL is the world’s most popular open-source database, then MySQL in a Nutshell (2nd ed.) by Russell J. T. Dyer is the Encyclopedia Britannica of MySQL. Weighing in at 545 pages, the book is divided into five parts:

1. Tutorial – A brief tutorial on installing MySQL and performing basic database management tasks (35 pages).
2. Statement and Function Reference – A comprehensive reference to SQL statements, clauses, and functions implemented by MySQL. (SQL is the standard language implemented by all major database management systems, but MySQL, Oracle, MS SQLServer, and the rest all have their own quirks.) This section weighs in at nearly 300 pages, and covers database user administration, data manipulation, and database replication, and more. String function, date and time functions, mathematical functions, and flow control functions are described here, too.
3. Client and Server Administration – A guide to MySQL server and client configuration and administration (90 pages). This is where you will learn the difference between mysqld (the database server) and mysql (the command-line client), and the configuration options of each. A reference to command-line utilities such as mysqladmin, mysqlcheck and mysqldump is also included.
4. Programming APIs – A 100-page guide to three popular programming language APIs – C, Perl, and PHP – which websites or programs use to interface with MySQL.
5. Quick Reference – A 15-page set of appendices with a quick reference to the data types, operators (arithmetic, relational, and logical), and environment variables used by MySQL.

If you are an absolute beginner to MySQL and database management systems, this book might not be the best first choice for you. A good place to start instead might be here. But if you know that MySQL is in your software development or web site development future, MySQL in a Nutshell deserves a place on your bookshelf.

Remember — this is a survey of books, blogs and magazines that people are recommending to me. I haven’t distilled the list down yet… still collecting suggestions from friends… My friend Antoine told me to look at Digital Web Magazine – they publish a variety of articles of interest to web designers, web developers, etc.

Here’s a few books that Antoine mentioned:

1. Designing With Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman, published by Peachpit Press, 2007, ISBN:0321385551, 410 pages (and you know I’ve recommended Zeldman’s book a Zillion times)
2. Web Accessibility, Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance, by Jim Thatcher, Michael R. Burks, Christian Heilmann, Shawn Lawton Henry, Patrick H. Lauke, Richard Rutter; published by Friends of ED, 2006, ISBN:1590596382, 648 pages
3. The Zen of CSS Design, by Dave Shea, and Molly E. Holzschlag; Published by Peachpit Press, 2005, ISBN:0321303474, 296 pages
4. The Business Side of Creativity, The Complete Guide for Running a Graphic Design Or Communications Business, by Cameron S. Foote, Illustrated by Mark Bellerose;Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2002, ISBN:039373093X, 432 pages

Context is Everything – For architects, computer programmers, lawyers, philosophers, and theologians – context is everything. The essential reading list for a lawyer is different from the essential reading list of an architect, physician or pastor.  I’m also searching for common themes, and patterns to reuse…

Is there a book (or a blog) that should be essential reading for architects (who build large buildings)  — and for computer architects (who build large computer systems)? I think there might be… and I’m getting to that… hang on a minute…. Are there books and blogs that every designer should read, whether they are designing websites, bikes, book covers, or baby-clothes?

The quest for the best – There are a lot of dead end streets on this quest. For instance, sometimes you find a really cool blog, but alas — the blogger quits blogging. Example: Loosely Coupled – a great blog for software developers and systems architects (covering SOA) – but the last entry appears to be from May 2006.

So, I sent emails to a few friends, saying:

What do you consider essential reading each day, each week, each
month? Books, journals, magazine, blogs?
What technical journals to read each month?
What do you read that keeps you going and growing?
I’m interested in your thoughts.

So, that’s the long contextual explanation as to why I’m building an essential reading list for various professions. Then I want to see if there are common themes — books, magazines, journals, and blogs that are considered essential reading by a lot of people from various backgrounds and professions.

So here’s a few books and blogs that my friends suggested, and guess what? Some of them were already on my blog roll, or books that I’ve read. This is not the distilled list of essential reading… yet… but here are some suggestions that are coming in from my initial survey of computer geeks and web designers…  not a comprehensive survey… (It’s kind of a list from A to Z – with the middle part still missing).

Suggested blogs:

1. 456 Berea Street – A blog by Roger Johansson. A Swedish web professional who has been working with the web and other interactive media since 1994.
2. AlertBox – Jakob Nielsen’s Newsletter on Web Usability
3. A List Apart – A List Apart Magazine (ISSN: 1534-0295) explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.
4. Authentic Boredom – A blog by web designer Cameron Moll.
5. UXMag – The User Experience Magazine – Elevating user experience one article at a time.
6. Zeldman – Online since May 1995, “Jeffrey Zeldman Presents” is the personal site of designer, writer, and web standards guru Jeffrey Zeldman. Zeldman was one of the first designers, bloggers, and independent publishers on the web, and one of the first web design teachers. We’ve mentioned (and reviewed his best selling book), Designing With Web Standards, several times before.

To be continued…

1. JavaScript: The Missing Manual, by David McFarland, published by O’Reilly Media, ISBN: 978-0-596-51589-8, 543 pages, US $39.99 ~ A great reference, and tutorial on JavaScript
2. JavaScript: The Good Parts, by Douglas Crockford, published by O’Reilly Media, ISBN: 978-0-596-51774-8, 153 pages, US $29.99 ~ A solid JavaScript reference and delightfully opinionated how-to manual for avoiding the bad parts of JavaScript and maximizing use of the good parts.
3. Dojo: The Definitive Guide, by Matthew A. Russell, published by O’Reilly Media, ISBN: 978-0-596-51648-2, 450 pages, US $39.99 ~ The definitive guide for powering up AJAX development techniques with the popular and powerful Dojo JavaScript library.
4. Mastering Dojo, subtitle – JavaScript and Ajax Tools for Great Web Experiences, by Rawld Gill, Craig Riecke, and Alex Russell, published by the Pragmatic Programmers, Pragmatic Bookshelf, ISBN:978-1-934356-11-1, 555 pages, US $38.95 ~ Dojo is a set of client-side  JavaScript tools that help you build better web applications.

Cathleen Falsani is a popular and awarding winning columnist for the Chicago Sun Times, and author of The God Factor.  Falsani (aka godgurl) was anointed 2005 Religion Writer of the Year, by the Religion Newswriters Association.  She’s a graduate of Wheaton College and holds master’s degrees in journalism and theology.

Falsani says grace (by her definition) is something unexpected. In Sin Boldly – A Field Guide for Grace, published in September 2008, she goes looking for God’s grace in places you would not expect to find it.  She looks for God, in places people think He doesn’t go.  It’s a delightful, fast reading collection of essays, looking for God in “all the wrong places”, yet finding traces of God’s grace … even there.  It’s a field guide for grace, so put your blue jeans and hiking boots on. Falsani leads the expedition through AIDS infested Africa, and into hurricane devastated  Mississippi… looking for grace under every fallen, rotten tree in the forest. Falsani goes “out into the wild places” looking for grace where grace doesn’t exist… and finds it.

Sin Boldly - A Field Guide for Grace

This is a book primarily for people who say they’ve never experienced grace, that it doesn’t exist, or at least they don’t believe it does. (p.11)

Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you absolutely don’t deserve. (p.14)

Falsani quotes Bono‘s song entitled Grace. “Grace, she takes the blame, she covers the shame, removes the stain… Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.” (p.14,15)

My friend Joe Thorn, who’s a pastor in the Chicago area joined a Facebook fanclub for the book and that caught my eye. I’m a Detroiter, so I rarely read anything in the Chicago Sun Times, and I had never heard of Falsani before.  Something about the book title intrigued me… err, maybe it was just the book title that snagged my attention. Sin Boldly. What does that mean? Sounds kind of dangerous.  My dear wife Jane raised her eyebrows and said something like… “Be careful – it sounds like it could be some Hokey Pokey”.  “And his evil cousin Hankey Pankey”, I quipped in reply.  BTW – Hokey Pokey is in the book. (p.38)

The phrase “Sin Boldly” actually comes from a letter of the great Reformation leader Martin Luther to his friend Phillip Melanchthon.

If you are a preacher of Grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.

I used to live in Grand Rapids and ride my bike past Zondervan publishing headquarters at the intersection of Robinson Rd. and Lake Drive. Yes I did. Zondervan and I go way back. So I’m not unaware of the deep traditions in Christian publishing, and the connection between Wheaton and Grand Rapids. But, I had no idea what to expect in this book from the “God Girl” of  Chicago.

People tend to make up their mind about a book before they even read it.

I read and review a lot of technical books. In fact many of the books I review are technical manuals about various aspects of web site design, databases, or dynamic computer languages. So, this book was a great change of pace, an easy read, and a blessing in several ways.  Cathleen Falsani is a great story teller. I read the book for several hours while riding down to Roanoke, Virginia, and again for a few hours during the ride back home to Detroit.

The first thing that caught my eye, when opening the book was the quote from Lee Strobel (another Chicago area journalist, and author of The Case for the Real Jesus). Lee said:

Here’s an utterly original, unflinchingly honest, heart-expanding treatment of my favorite topic: the grace of God.

Probably the next thing that snagged my attention in the book was the quote from the esteemed Christian Reformed scholar, Louis Berkhof – from his book Systematic Theology – talking about common grace: it “curbs the destructive power of sin, maintains in a measure the moral order of the universe… and showers untold blessings upon the children of men.” (p.10) This hit really close to home, since I grew up in the CRC and read Berkhof’s Systematic Theology in college. (Maybe I should pay attention to what’s going on in this book.)

Sin Boldy is not a technical book, and not a “Systematic Theology”.  We sniff a few sweet flavors of grace at the beginning of the book (p.10) common grace, special grace, irresistible grace, saving grace, protecting, and dying grace. However, there is never an attempt to define each term through precise technical descriptions. Instead, the book is a collection of stories that reveal grace.  We are stalking the wild Aslan in the darkest jungle – except Aslan is really stalking us.

Each chapter is a different short story, and the stories are loosely connected, and sprinkled with quips that make you stop and think.  “Once you let Jesus in your kitchen, He just keeps making peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and He never leaves.” (p.24)

Chapter 2 – Bouncing Into Graceland, describes a visit to Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate. Cathleen decided to visit her old college friend Bubba, and together they would tour Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Bubba is my “best good friend”, as in Forrest and Bubba in Forrest Gump. He calls me Kitty and I call him Bubba… Our extraordinary friendship is on of the great blessings of my life. When we were freshmen, I read a book in my Theology 101 class, called The Go-Between God … God’s grace is what makes the connections between people that wouldn’t happen otherwise… It’s the only legitimate explanation for how this liberal journalist, freelance Christian, Connecticut Yankee and the self-proclaimed “high-tech hillbilly”, pride of Yazoo City, Mississippi formed a life long bond…

Bubba admitted that he was a bit skeptical about looking for the grace of God at Elvis’ Graceland estate:

… and good five-point Calvinist that he is, proceeded to lecture me on his thorough and erudite theological understanding of grace, and his concern that many Christians might misunderstand it as a kind of “get outta jail free card” – to sin, if not boldly, at least with abandon.  (p. 20,21)

Later… Bubba admitted he might be over thinking the concept of grace. “Us five-pointers should be the ones to understand and convey grace the best, but we’re not… but grace has got me in a headlock and won’t let me go.” (p.21)

Bubba makes me laugh harder than anyone I know… like that scene in Mary Poppins where Bert and Uncle Albert are laughing so hard they start to levitate. (p.21)

There’s a lot about Elvis that’s easy to mock, and believe me, we have. (p. 22)

This was funny, but I was getting kind of bored with this chapter, not sure where it was going… until I came to the section about Elvis winning the Grammy awards, and singing How Great Thou Art.

Did you know the only Grammy awards Elvis won were for gospel recordings? The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll won his first Grammy in 1967 for Best Sacred Performance for the gospel album, How Great Thou Art.

My mother sang How Great Thou Art at her own funeral. Actually, my dad played a recording of my mother singing How Great Thou Art from a family home recording made 10 years earlier. (We also sang it in church yesterday morning.)

Chapter 3 – Jane was driving as we headed south on highway 77, near Charleston, West Virginia. I was reading the chapter called Driving and Crying.

Reminders of the Father’s love… a few crumbs of grace … from chapter 3:

She talks about childhood memories… the moment of grace in the guise of a song… and quoting Frederick Buechner: “Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump in your throat, because they are signs that the holy is drawing near.” (p.36)

Driving while listening to music is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It’s a spiritual practice I learned from my father… I would accompany Daddy on the ride from our home in Connecticut into Manhattan… Many of my fondest memories from childhood are of those regular road trips in his Karmann Ghia, whizzing along the Henry Hudson Parkway, listening to his favorite traditional jazz station on the AM-only radio, talking about nothing in particular, and eating Cracker Jacks from the box he always kept in a hidden compartment… (p.36)

She quotes Lin Brehmer, the Reverend of Rock-n-Roll, from WXRT radio in Chicago:

As we get older, we begin to consider our mortality. The godless man might ask himself at the end of his life, “Have I miscalculated?” (p.37)

The book continues on the journey, “looking for God in the places some people say God isn’t supposed to be.” (p.38) “What brings a tear to the eye of one person, is not the thing that puts a lump in the throat of another, but for everyone there is some music that changes their life… for me, it might be Jeff Buckley’s  Hallelujah…” (p.41)

Chapter 8 – The Screaming Frenchman

By the time I got halfway through chapter 8, I finally decided that it was OK to enjoy reading this book, and  soak up the lessons that God was teaching me through reading it. God’s grace is revealed more clearly when He draws near to us in unexpected ways. The book was hitting me close to my heart – connecting me with people and events I had heard about in recent conversations with friends.

Bubba made me promise to visit the Screaming Frenchman… I was on a road trip to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast… I almost didn’t go. (p.77) As I pulled into the muddy driveway of his home hear the center of town, I spotted his SUV and a bumper sticker. It said WWJBD? – as in What Would Jimmy Buffet Do? That’s my kind of pastor. (p.78)

Young people from my church (near Detroit) worked with the Screaming Frenchman (Pastor Jean Larroux) last summer in Mississippi.  (My dull brain was starting to connect the dots.)  That same evening, Sarah (the sister in law) showed me a PowerPoint presentation of home repairs they made while working with Lagniappe Presbyterian Church when she traveled with a group of young people down to Mississippi — from her church in Roanoke, VA.

Falsani relates the conversations about grace with Jean Larroux.

“I would say that grace is startling,” Jean told me…. “It’s just startling. It isn’t supposed to work.” (p.79)

The day after the storm (Katrina Hurricane of August 2005),  Jean arrived in his hometown to find that his cousins had just pulled the bodies of their parents from the wreckage of their destroyed house. So many people along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana have similar tales of unthinkable loss. I find the depth of the sorrows they have to bear impossible to fathom. (.p 79)

When Jean told the powers that be in his denomination that he wanted to start a church in the Bay, they said it couldn’t be done. This is where Jean’s stubbornness and, perhaps, God’s stubborn grace came into play. “My definition of grace would be multifaceted, but part of it would certainly be God’s passion for brokenness. He does, he really does love brokenness” Jean told me. “This is a hard place to live, but God is bigger than hard places to live.”(p.80,81)

At the end of Lagniappe Presbyterian Church’s first year, the congregation, peopled by local folks who had lost almost everything (living in FEMA trailers) … and volunteers from across the country … in a steady stream to help the community rebuild …. had $1.7 million in the church coffers…  The congregation committed to giving away 10 percent of all they were given and in that first year was able to write $170,000 in benevolence checks to help struggling broken people in other parts of the world. In fact Lagniappe is the largest single donor to a ministry in Colorado that helps sex workers escape the sex-for-sale industry. (p.81)

I read Chapter 16 (The Purple Mamas of Asembo Bay) to Jane and the girls as we traveled north on I-77, Sunday afternoon, Sept 7th. The chapter describes the purple robed women of Asembo Bay, Kenya.

The Women’s Cooperative of Asembo Bay is a group of twenty six widows who pool their resources and care for about seventy children (many of them orphans who have lost their parents to AIDS). (p.162)

I asked if I could do anything for them… one of the youngest Mamas, a shy teenage mother wearing a red and black soccer jersey and a white kerchief on her head said … “Tell our story”.

We all liked that chapter.

The book has 20 chapters, plus a free grace lagniappe (bonus) chapter at the end. My lagniappe gift for you: Visit the Zondervan website about the book, and view a short video clip interview with the author Cathleen Falsani. You can also read Falsani’s blog – The Dude Abides, where she frequently posts new stories.

—

David Crumm recently reviewed the book and interviewed Falsani. The book has number of great stories about Cathleen’s good-buddy from college days — the mystery man named Bubba (a conservative Presbyterian boy from Mississippi). I was curious who Bubba was too, so I’m glad David asked for some  background on Bubba.

Bubba’s real name is John Michael Pillow. He and I met (20 years ago last week) as freshmen at Wheaton College, which was an unlikely place for either one of us to wind up. We couldn’t be different, on paper, if we tried.   When we met, he was the son of the second-largest cotton plantation owner in Mississippi. He was the first person in his family to live above the Mason-Dixon line. He was a white, sneaker-wearing, guitar-playing guy who liked girls who were the opposite of me.

—

Joel Hamernick reviewed Sin Boldly in his City Grace blog, and connected the dots from Falsani’s narrative to  Tim Keller’s apologetic style.

Falsani’s book made me think about a recent argument made by Tim Keller that religion advocates typically are so disconnected from disbelievers that they caricature one another in argument, find no common ground, and  therefore have meaningless conversations that are more attack than discussion.

—

An excerpt from the book (the chapter called “Man Hands”) appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, August 29th, 2008, under the title, Why Jesus Had Great Hands.

—

A word of caution to my theologically literate, conservative, Presbyterian Bubba buddies, because I know what you might be thinking…

Cathleen Falsani writes a regular column on the Huffington Post, like her recent post Embrace Your Grace. After reading a few paragraphs of her edgy Chicago area religion posts for Huffington, like Give Context a Chance, you might NOT want to give context a chance. I can already hear the murmuring…  Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright ( Barack Obama’s former pastor at Trinity UCC ) is too far left (funny … Wright is too far left) — or too far out of the suburban comfort zone. Hey, Dr. Wright was too far out of Obama’s comfort zone… You might be thinking that Father Michael Pfleger is too far out there (Hallelujah … praise God … somebody scream Hallelujah) … with his liberation theology… and even Fox News does a better job of explaining what Jesus was talking about in John 17… or do they?

It get’s complicated and confusing real quick… because it’s an election year, and people get all emotional and stop thinking logically.  It’s true that Falsani covers the religion beat for the Chicago Sun Times. But it’s too easy to dismiss Falsani as “another Obama mama”, just because she lives in the Chicago area and reports on the activities of the churches in her neighborhood.

I can hear the critics now: “A Wright supporter? Oh, you can write her off, without even reading the book.”   There are several silly silogisms in this logic… so slow it down a little bit, and think about it from the other Bubba’s perspective. Now that we “vented a little steam” about the concerns you have, go read the book.

Book Cover - The Myths of Innovation

Scott Berkun understands innovation. Berkun was a project leader for Microsoft, working on Internet Explorer during the browser wars of 1994 to 1999.  Take some clues from context and chronology. After writing the 2005 bestseller, The Art of Project Management,  a practical guide to project management, Berkun picked up his pen again to debunk the myths of innovation.

Just because you have a “big idea” — does not mean you’ll be in the TechCrunch 50. Just because you “came up with the idea first” — does not mean your product or service will be successful, or that history will remember your name, or the name of your product. Was it Twitter or Yammer?  Are you following me? Here’s the point –  innovation battles may have an occasional “cease fire”, but the innovation war never ends.

Talk about war? Just watch the browser wars heating up again. Remember Netscape (killed in the second round)… Who is winning now? Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Flake, Chrome, Opera, SingAlong, or Safari? It’s a jungle out there. You may think your an explorer, but can you outfox the competition? It’s not over until the fat lady sings… and even when she sings, the opera is just over for that night — until the next day, and the next big show starts up.

Exploding Myths of Innovation

This is not a “dream big” and “feel good” story. Berkun wants to help you become a successful innovator — so he doesn’t “sugar coat” the road to success.  In the process, Berkun methodically dismantles many modern myths about innovation — with copious footnotes.

As Berkun says in the preface:

Although debunking and demystifying takes place, the intent is to clarify how innovation happens, so you’ll better understand the world around you and can avoid the mistakes — should you attempt innovation yourself.

Berkun wants to:

1. Identify the myths about innovation.
2. Explain why they’re popular.
3. Explore and teach from the truth.

I’m glad O’Reilly published this book in hardcover. It fits nicely in my hand and doesn’t take too much room in the side pocket of my briefcase.  In this day of paper-backs, eBooks and PDF’s, I sometimes enjoy a book that I can hold onto — a perfect companion for the bus ride to work. Some days, when I’ve had too much coffee with my cream and sugar, I’m ready to explode with a burst of new ideas, creative thinking, and brilliant innovations. This book brings me back to the reality zone, and firmly reminds me to take the next practical steps to develop that idea into a successful product.

Each chapter tackles a different myth about innovation — giving it a name, showing us how to recognize it, explaining “why people believe the lie” (why it’s a popular myth), and finally explaining through several examples how things really work. There are many historical examples, and the footnotes help convince the stubborn reader regarding the veracity of the claims.

The Myth of Epiphany – (I call this one “lucky epiphany”) – Berkun explores the myth of epiphany in chapter 1, which is the name he gives to the concept that great new ideas come from “a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something”. The discovery process is rarely (if ever) that simple.  The example provided is Isaac Newton and the discovery of gravity.

One grand myth is the story of Isaac Newton and the discovery of gravity. As it’s often told, Newton was sitting under a tree, an apple fell on his head, and the idea of gravity was born… Instead of hard work, personal risk, and sacrifice, the myth suggests that great ideas come to people who are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

The myth about Isaac Newton and the apple discounts Newton’s 20 years of work to explain gravity and the laws of physics. We must remember Newton’s relentless focus on problem solving, days without food, and sleepless nights, suffering through endless mathematical equations.

“Eureka moment” is another phrase that helps us understand the myth of epiphany.

The other great legend of innovation … is the tale of Archimedes’ Eureka. As the story goes, the great inventor Archimedes was asked by his king to detect whether a gift was made of false gold. One day Archimedes took a bath, and on observing the displacement of the water as he stepped (into the bath-tub) … he recognized a new way to look at the problem: by knowing an object’s volume and weight, he could compute its density. He ran naked into the streets yelling “Eureka!” (I have found it!).

An overlooked part of the story is the significant amount of time Archimedes spent trying and failing to find the solution before taking the bath. A warm bath (after many hours of hard work and difficult research) may have brought the “big idea” to the surface, but it was not just a “lucky idea”.

Other chapters explain and explode other myths of innovation such as “people love new ideas” (no, they hate them), the myth of “the lone inventor”, “good ideas are hard to find”, “the best ideas win”, and even “innovation is always good”.

I seriously recommend this book for wanna-be-inventors, innovators in every discipline, investors, entrepreneurs, computer software and hardware development teams, corporate R & D lab leaders, tech-crunchers, architects, engineers, scientists, etc.  This book has earned a rare spot on my shelf of books worth reading  and/or referencing more than once.

Thought you were done? Keep researching…

The book concludes with an appendix entitled “Research and Recommendations” which includes an annotated bibliography. Berkun recommends Peter Drucker’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and many other helpful books.

You can follow Scott Berkun’s latest innovations at ScottBerkun.com.

Other ways to review (or preview) concepts from the Myths of Innovation book can be found in my recent blog entries with links to several video presentations. For instance: the 2 minute book preview, the video of Scott Berkun’s talk at Google headquarters, and the video of Berkun’s lecture about Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University.

FBML Essentials – Facebook Markup Language Fundamentals, written by Jesse Stay, published by O’Reilly Media, July 2008, 167 pages, ISBN:0-596-51918-6,  $29.99

FBML Essentials - Facebook Markup Language - book cover

Facebook is the world’s largest and fastest growing social networking website (with 132 Million unique vistors in June of 2008).

FMBL Essentials, the new book from O’Reilly Media, is all about learning the essential markup elements and fundamentals of Facebook application design.  FBML (like HTML)  provides the basic markup tags for building a Facebook application.

According to the author Jesse Stay, this book is essential for anyone who wants to be a part of Facebook’s future. “FBML is only the beginning of your adventure in Facebook Development. Reviewing and knowing what tags are available will help save you time as you develop on Facebook.”

Whaaoo there Jesse, let’s not go-a-galloping on that horse so quickly. Some people might need to sign-up for Facebook first.  Or maybe read Facebook, The Missing Manual,  and get familiar with the Facebook blog and FAQ.

Somewhere along your journey of joining Facebook — and finding your first 20 or 200 friends –  you might have started thinking about becoming a Facebook application developer.  Perhaps you stumbled across the Facebook application developer area, and said to yourself – hmmmm, that would be fun to try. You might be  a curious technology geek like me, or “social geek” like FBML Essentials author – Jessy Stay.

OK, cowboy! Are you ready to ride? Buy this book. Read it. Learn FBML fast.

You’ll discover:

• A sample Facebook application – with explanations of how it works
• Design rules for images, CSS, Javascript, and forms – related to FBML
• An introduction to FBJS, Facebook’s version of JavaScript
• Concise explanations of all the FBML tags – logic tags, user tags, profile tags, etc.
• How to create forms with FBML
• Dynamic FBML attributes, including MockAJAX
• Tips on testing your FBML code

You can tell Jesse Stay is a very sharp guy when you read his blog.  He wrote his first FBML application in just one week, and sold it 2 months later. Jesse has consulted for several of the top 100 applications on Facebook. Now Jesse’s working on an iPhone Interactive entertainment application that will help cowboys change gears faster, or something like that.