The Myths Of Innovation (Again)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... I wrote about a great book by Scott Berkun. A talk presenting his at Google is also available there. Today I stumbled upon a short presentation containing some great quotes from his book.

Here are the quotes:

• Myths are often more satisfying to us than the truth, which explains their longevity and resistance to facts: we want to believe that they’re true.
• Myths always serve promotion more than education.
• Instead of hard work, personal risk, and sacrifice, the [innovation] myth suggests that great ideas come to people who are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
• If we had a list of the most amazing breakthrough insights that would change the world in the next decade, hard work would follow them all.
• The love of new ideas is a myth: we prefer ideas only after others have tested them. We confuse truly new ideas with good ideas that have already been proven, which just happens to be new to us.
• Innovative ideas are rarely rejected on their merits; they’re rejected because of how they make people feel.
• Ideas are abstractions. You can’t get cash from the idea of an ATM machine. To become an innovation, an idea has to blossom into whatever form necessary - a demo, a prototype, a product - to be useful to people.
• An idea is not an innovation until it reaches people.
• Execution demands more effort than idea generation, and it’s difficult to know how much more until you try.
• The dirty little secret … is that unlike the mythical epiphany, real creation is sloppy. Discovery is messy; exploration is dangerous. No one knows what he’s going to get when he’s being creative.
• Innovation comes at a price: it might be money, time, sanity, friends, or marriages, but there will be one.
• Part of the challenge of innovation is coming up with the problem to solve, not just its solution.
• The majority of innovations come from dedicated people in a field working hard to solve a well-defined problem. It’s not sexy and it won’t be in any major motion pictures anytime soon, but it’s the truth.
• Many innovations begin with bright minds following their personal interests. Their ambition is to pass the time, learn something new, or have fun.
• Revolutionary ideas can be too much change for people to handle. Innovations often need to be explained in terms of the status quo, which is why automobiles are rated in horsepower.
• Every great idea in history has the fat red stamp of rejection on its face. It’s hard to see today because once ideas gain acceptance, we gloss over the hard paths they took to get there.