Myths of Innovation,the:Expanded and Revised with Four New Chapters  (English, Paperback, Berkun Scott)

In this new paperback edition of the classic bestseller, you'll be taken on a hilarious, fast-paced ride through the history of ideas. Author Scott Berkun will show you how to transcend the false stories that many business experts, scientists, and much of pop culture foolishly use to guide their thinking about how ideas change the world. With four new chapters on putting the ideas in the book to work, updated references and over 50 corrections and improvements, now is the time to get past the myths, and change the world.

You'll have fun while you learn:

• Where ideas come from
• The true history of history
• Why most people don't like ideas
• How great managers make ideas thrive
• The importance of problem finding
• The simple plan (new for paperback)

Since its initial publication, this classic bestseller has been discussed on NPR, MSNBC, CNBC, and at Yale University, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Google, Amazon.com, and other major media, corporations, and universities around the world. It has changed the way thousands of leaders and creators understand the world. Now in an updated and expanded paperback edition, it's a fantastic time to explore or rediscover this powerful view of the world of ideas.

About the Author
Scott Berkun was a manager at Microsoft from 1994-2003, on projects including v1-5 (not 6) of Internet Explorer. He is the author of three bestselling books, Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation and Confessions of a Public Speaker. He works full time as a writer and speaker, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes magazine, The Economist, The Washington Post, Wired magazine, National Public Radio and other media. He regularly contributes to Harvard Business and BusinessWeek, has taught creative thinking at the University of Washington, and has appeared as an innovation and management expert on MSNBC and on CNBC. He writes frequently on innovation and creative thinking at his surprisingly popular blog: scottberkun.com and tweets at @berkun.

His ambition in life is to fill the above bookshelf, which is by his writing desk, with books he has written. If he were smarter, he’d have picked a smaller shelf.

He’s based in Seattle, WA, but speaks often all around the world speaking about creativity and other topics he’s written about. If you’d like to hire him to speak at an event, head over here: www.scottberkun.com. You can watch videos of him in action and get in touch.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The myth of epiphany

    Ideas never stand alone

Chapter 2 We understand the history of innovation

    Why does history seem perfect?
    Evolution and innovation

Chapter 3 There is a method for innovation

    How innovations start
    The seeds of innovation
    The challenges of innovation
    The infinite paths of innovation
    Finding paths of innovation

Chapter 4 People love new ideas

    Managing the fears of innovation
    Negative things innovators hear
    The innovator’s dilemma explained
    Frustration + innovation = entrepreneurship?
    How innovations gain adoption: the truth about ideas before their time

Chapter 5 The lone inventor

    The convenience of lone inventors
    The challenge of simultaneous invention
    The myth of the lone inventor
    Stepping-stones: the origins of spreadsheets and E=mc2

Chapter 6 Good ideas are hard to find

    The dangerous life of ideas
    How to find good ideas
    Ideas and filters

Chapter 7 Your boss knows more about innovation than you

    The myth that managers know what to do
    Five challenges of managing innovation

Chapter 8 The best ideas win

    Why people believe the best wins
    The secondary factors of innovation
    Space, metrics, and Thomas Jefferson
    The goodness/adoption paradox

Chapter 9 Problems and solutions

    Problems as invitations
    Framing problems to help solve them
    The truth about serendipity

Chapter 10 Innovation is always good

    Measuring innovation: the goodness scale
    Innovations are unpredictable (DDT, automobiles, and the Internet)
    Technology accelerates without discrimination
    The good and bad, the future and the past

Chapter 11 Epilogue: Beyond hype and history

    The simple plan

Chapter 12 Creative thinking hacks

    Kill creative romance
    Combinations
    Inhibition
    Environment
    Persistence
    Creative thinking hacks

Chapter 13 How to pitch an idea

    All ideas demand change

Chapter 14 How to stay motivated

    The big motivations

Appendix Research and recommendations

    Annotated bibliography
    Ranked bibliography
    Other research sources

Appendix Photo credits

    Chapter openers
    Figures

Appendix Acknowledgments

    For the paperback edition
    For the original edition

Appendix How to help this book: A request from the author

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