Myths of Innovation - Discuss Scott Berkun's Book

We'll get into talking about Scott Berkun's Book during our May 13 webinar. Please feel free to start conversations or post questions in advance

I was very surprised by the aspect that innovations only diffuse at a slow rate and that technology is not the main factor within the diffusion process of innovation. I always thought that technological "know-how" was one of the accelerators of all sorts of innovations and that an innovation(once it gained acceptance) would be dispread very quickly. What's your feeling about this?

Greetings
Linda

Linda, I agree to your thesis to some extent. At a first glance technological know-how might ease innovation somehow and hence can be an accelerator.

But secondly technology today in my opinion can also be contra-productive. What does that mean? Technological progress is so fast moving in our todays world that you have to cope with innovations especially in this sector more often than in the past. That means that people might get confused by the ongoing technological progress and the new things arising. Such developments might incur reluctancy to further progress and innovations as they will be old-fashioned after only a short period of time.

Adding up to what Linda and Stefan have stressed with the aspect of technology, I want to draw your attention to the fact that we have only been able to read chapter 4 (via pdf-file) and to see this book presentation of Scott Berkun. (Which I though of being a very interesting aspect to see the author and how he approaches the book in a lecture for students!)

Referring back to the facts presented about the distribution of technology, on p.65 five factors are named which are thought to define how quickly innovations spread. This was all feasible for me so far, but what made me think was the paragraph after that: "There is no uniformity in progress around the world; innovations may be adopted by one culture or nation decades before another."
Wow, this was a very cool and disturbing thesis to me at the same time. I started to reflect about this: there is not "one uniform world"? What is the reason for that? Who are the mostly advanced nations? How is innovative progression measured?
I started to reflect about how our society determines progress. Of course we first think of progress in terms of technology (like Linda and Stefan have discussed). We all know that wealthy nations see themselves as sophisticated in this regard, however, isn't there also another aspect about progress and innovation? What about values and social interaction?
Don't you think that today's society in the Western hemisphere is, while considering itself as being cutting-edge in technological issues, poorly developed (maybe even fallen behind) in innovative activities relating to altruistic behaviour?
(for example, greed and selfishness -traits which oppose altruism- made society as a whole pay for a wrecked financial market!)

Hey! Well I made a couple of notes when I was listening to the video so maybe it's useful for you so I will share them:
First thing was his definition of an innovation which is "To begin or introduce something for the first time" - Here I completly agree with his opinion since I'm in the opinion that definitions has to be short and understandable since otherwise they do not define it for people! In addition to that a subdefinition I would choose is " How you innovate=what you innovate" - which he also pointed out in his presentation.
The second point is that "innovation is relative" - means the answer to the question is the innovation useful and if yes for whom? - here I also agree and want to add his answer he gave in the question discussion when somebody asked "who's the innovator of an invention?" and he responded "well everybody who was involved in this issue and mostly the one with the idea and the highest taken risk" which in my eyes is completly right!
Another thing is the viewpoint of an innovation which he specified with the quote "innovation become granted if they're adopted - here we have to focus on the different viewpoints before an innnovation is adopted and after which I tried to analyse in my comment of last week.
In addition to the question of the discussion he added the truth "innovations are not depending on a size of a company" - here I do only partly agree since it depends what kind of innovation we are talking about and what status it has reached in his development. Undoubtable is the fact that innovations were nearly never done by only one person!
Another point he mentioned was "Innovation lead to failure" which is definitly true since I can not consider about one without the them - or do you?
The paradox he mentioned is also a very important point talking about innovation. He statet that the greater the potential of a idea is the harder it is to find anyone willing to try it - the point here is that if nobody is willing to try it we will never know the potential in advance, do we? There are thousand of examples where we can see this. Think about the hulahup-wheel. This was an innovation which became a process with its own internal dynamics.
To end this up I want to add his idea that " innovation hase thousands of variables that lead to the fact that there is no guarentee for a successfull innovation although everything was done RIGHT" - another point he mentioned which is definetly true and deals also deeply with the adaptationprocess.

Looking forward to your comments!
Have a nice weekend!

Scott has done a great service by debunking many of cherished myths that hold many people back from innovating. It is ironic that a book that aims to destroy innovation myths actually provides a set of insights that will help anyone come up with ideas (whether they work at Google or not)

Hello guys,

when I read the text "the myths of innovations" I was rather suprised about the fact that the great innovators of our past where considered to be fools. I couldn't believe that their great ideas which brought us tecnological progress like phones were not even taken seriously.
I would have expected that due to difficulties of implementation people might have considered those great ideas as rather unimportant. But that the ideas itself were and still are nowadays turened down is something that I can't believe.
I think that the rejection of innonvation is very closly linked with what we have already learned about change: It is the fear of the unknown.
This problem makes me wonder how many other great ideas were turned down, which were not able to become accepted among our society?

I agree to what Julia said as it is really unimaginable how many great ideas must have been destroyed by the unacceptance of some people. However, isn´t it necessary to select while you have to decide whether you invest in an idea or not?

From my point of view its human to prefer things and therefore resist against others. In addition to that, maybe it also depends on the innovator!?! Imagine somebody presenting an idea to you who is totally nervous and unable to speak clearly. Now imagine another person who speaks clearly, with engagement and enthusiasm. I think the way of how you present your innovation also influences the decision of the people who have to invest in your idea.

Hi everyone.

I totally agree with Saskia. An innovator should be able to persuade an audience of his idea. However, he needs open-minded people, who are willing to try something new. In my opinion every innovator has to convince a special amount of people. If this threshold is crossed, a further spread of the innovation will happen very fast.

So far so good, or "I totally agree that I totally agree" with all of you - especially to the one quoted from Kes Sampanthar
Inventor of ThinkCube

To Scott Berkun: Since I was only reading the chapter provided ("people love new ideas"), I can not discuss his whole book. But his thoughts about developing and introducing new ideas were interesting. Rather than repeating the good statements on the topic, I just want to go on with the discussion.

@Julia: If the decision-makers (maybe some kind of lobby), that have to decide wether to finance, implement or communicate the innovation, see their own power at risk (money, influence, etc.), a smart and talented innovator has no chance to get her/his idea through that wall. The audience often could be considered as open-minded, but in a selfish way.

For example the medical industry: On the one hand pharmacy companies love to talk about improving life of millions of people. Do you think they would appreciate if an open-minded innovator comes along, telling them to finance his innovation which would make dialysis unnecessary? (By the way, the medical sector pays the highest avarage salary in germany - strange feeling about that? ...maybe the financial system is not the only area that needs some creative destruction)


See you all at the webinar,
Oliver

PS: No offence to Laura, Kim and Manuel

And thanks to Roman, you saved me 1 hour of cheeze-time

Hi everybody,

in my opinion it is very difficult for innovators to enforce his idea. They are confrontes with alarmingly statements like described in the text "the myths of innovation" during giving an idea of they innovation. Statements like: this will never work, this would never make money or no one will want this. But if they could convince somebody of theirs idea, it is possible to make easier the life of their fellow men. And maybe the humaity could be thankful for the helping innovation hundreds of years later, like electric bulbs and wheels...