Book Review: The Myths of Innovation, by Scott Berkun, published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., May 2007, 192 pages, ISBN: 0-596-52705-5, hardcover, $24.99
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:
- Identify the myths about innovation.
- Explain why they’re popular.
- 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.
