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
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 http://www.scottberkun.com.
Book Details
- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: O’Reilly Media; 1 edition (May 15, 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0596527055
- ISBN-13: 978-0596527051
- File Size: 7.0 MiB
- Hits: 1,892 times
