Released in May, Scott Berkun’s The Myths of Innovation studies innovation history to reveal how ideas become truths that people can apply to today’s challenges and change the world.

Hardcover, 176pp

O'Reilly Media, Incorporated, May 2007

ISBN-13: 9780596527051

Barnes & Noble online price: $24.99

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SYNOPSIS

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 (The Art of Project Management) 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.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“…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