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Book review: The Myths of Innovation, by Scott Berkun

I have just finished reading The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun. This 248-pages book describes how the work on innovation, and innovation in general, deviate from how we often perceive it, and from how it is presented by the media. It essentially carries the message that innovation is not some “magic” happening, but rather it is a lot of hard work, often carried out by many people.

The book is full of real life examples of inventors and inventions, demonstrating what “inventing” might really mean. The key concepts of this book may already be well known to anyone who worked on inventing new systems, applications, or products. Nevertheless, these concepts are presented so clearly, that they are much better absorbed after reading the examples and discussions in the book.

Some of the material in this book may sound obvious to some readers. However, the friendly (often humorous) tone in which the book is written, makes it easy to enjoy even those parts which might otherwise be found boring. The discussions in the book are well written, interesting, and are marked-up with numerous references and links for further reading.

While the book is not entirely prescriptive, the tips that it gives, such as on pitching, are certainly worth considering.

I bought the book at the O’Reilly website. It can also be found at Amazon.


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