The WELL: inkwell.vue.302: Scott Berkun, "The Myths of Innovation"

#107: bill braasch (bbraasch) Fri 13 Jul 07 15:02

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:02:00 PDT

Thanks for writing the book and coming here to talk about it. The conversation gave me a better understanding of this tricky magic stuff called innovation. [Read entire topic]

#106: Scott Berkun (scottberkun) Fri 13 Jul 07 14:42

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:42:00 PDT

Thx Cynthia & Scott and all the folks who posted! It was fun and I'll check back now and then.

Plan is to write fiction for awhile and start on another non-fiction book in the fall. [Read entire topic]

#105: I dare you to make less sense! (jet) Fri 13 Jul 07 09:11

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:11:00 PDT

Yes, thanks for being here! [Read entire topic]

#104: Gail Williams (gail) Thu 12 Jul 07 15:35

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:35:00 PDT

Great posts from so many participants. This was fun. [Read entire topic]

#103: Get Shorty (esau) Thu 12 Jul 07 12:07

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:07:00 PDT

Yes, thanks for spending your time with us, Scott. [Read entire topic]

#102: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Thu 12 Jul 07 09:46

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:46:00 PDT

(scottberkun), it's hard to believe that two weeks have already gone by. Thanks so much for joining us, this has been a pleasure. And thanks to you, (esau), for leading this conversation.

Though we're got a new guest in our virtual "center stage" now, you're welcome to stick around and continue as long as you wish. If you have other things calling you away, I hope you'll at least check back a couple times to respond to any late incoming questions.

such as: Now that "Myths of Innovation" is in the can, so to speak, you've probably got another project in the works. What is it, (scottberkun)? [Read entire topic]

#101: Scott Berkun (scottberkun) Wed 11 Jul 07 11:06

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:06:00 PDT

I agree there are issues of scale - but there are many examples of innovation happening in large organizations.

The NASA space program in the 60s is one the largest mass innovation efforts in history. About 500,000 people in total worked on the various innovations required to put a man on the moon. How did they do it? Two factors: 1) Delegation. They were able to divide projects into sub-projects and give individual project teams high autonomy, but clear points of integration 2) Clear vision. JFK provided a very clear goal for everyone to innovate around. So while people were coming up with ideas, it was all framed around a unified, and very crisp, goal (Put a man on the moon by 1970).

Of course, some large organizations have more executive centered innovation - that there are only a handful of thought leaders who are coming up with ideas, and much larger force of people who are executing those ideas. The stereotype of film production is a good example of this: there may be 200 or 400 people working on a major film production, but only 10 or 20 who are seen as creative directors. Even the actors may not play major creative roles in *defining* what the project is.

From all the research I've done it's clear there are many ways to make innovation in large organiations work. Some factors are cultural (how much involvement do people expect to have). Others are leadership (is the creative leader charismatic or persuasive enough to get large numbers of people to follow - Think Alexander the great). And some are process: is the way in which new ideas are proposed and decided upon transparent to everyone? [Read entire topic]

#100: Steve Bjerklie (stevebj) Wed 11 Jul 07 06:12

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 06:12:00 PDT

What an excellent question.

In large organizations, I think there is sometimes suspicion of those who prefer to work, or who work best, individually or in very small teams. [Read entire topic]

#99: Cupido, Ergo Sum (robertflink) Wed 11 Jul 07 05:47

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:47:00 PDT

>1) The differences in how innovation can be fostered/maintained in different scales of businesses (50-100 employee business vs. 8,000 employee business).<

The impact of scale is an important but seldom addressed subject in many human activities. Most of us have seen differences in the dynamics of even going from five to ten people in a gathering. There may be scales at which some things,e.g. innovation, grow with little effort while other scales where the same things is damn near impossible.

We talk of economies of scale, why not creativities of scale? [Read entire topic]

#98: Scott Berkun (scottberkun) Mon 9 Jul 07 17:37

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:37:00 PDT

Not sure I can answer that in any satisfactory way - Not that it isn't an interesting question, it's just that I've never seen a writer, a filmmaker, or any creator answer a question like this well :)

But for fun, and entertainment value (watch Scott shoot himself in the foot), I'll give it a shot:

The best answer is design: I did my best to make clear the goals of the book, to pick an interesting angle on a very well tread topic, and then write to satisfy those goals as concisely and enjoyably as possible for the reader. I don't think the book claims anywhere to be a handbook or manual, and I deliberately stayed away from tangents that went in that direction. I honestly didn't think a handbook can solve the problem of underlying and deeply believed misnomers about creative thinking, and as I mentioned in the preface, I wanted to strike at the roots of innovation, not the branches.

However, I do think there's tons of advice and tactics in the book. Particular to how innovative organizations come to be: pg 40-51 on the seeds of innovation is a condensed history of many great innovators and companies and how they did what they did, including patterns that can be followed. And pg. 96-107 is my distillation of all the histories of innovation management I read (which were numerous). Any manager who frames their efforts around the 5 challenges listed in that section will have a fantastic playbook for thinking about their work. [Read entire topic]