June 2007 Archives
The long version is back?
Or blog-style is just the coming thing for all Web sites?
Tags: web design
I'll be on George Korda's "State Your Case" radio show on Sunday (July 1) at noon, NewsTalk 100, talking about and answering questions on the redesign of knoxnews.com, a free GoVolsXtra.com and whatever else. Tune in.
I'm sure I'm not exciting enough for the whole three hours (it's on from noon to 3), but maybe we'll have enough to talk about for the first hour.
People have had things to say:
Knoxviews: KNS website changes and News Sentinel website update update.
Bob Stepno: New Knox Looks at Knox News
Larry Jones doesn't like your news organization: While the gnashing of teeth about the KNS and Metro Pulse continues...
Southern Fried Tech: Good news for SEC football fans and proponents of keeping the Internet free» no comments
Small Initiatives - Sensible Internet Design: Scripps moves Knoxnews to Ellington
Michael Silence's No Silence Here: KNS launches new KnoxNews
Erin Chapin: Goodbye, Vinny
Jack McElroy: Opening up KnoxNews and GoVolsXtra
Stacey Campfield: At last !
Knoxnews: Knoxnews.com introduces new look today
And tons of email yesterday.
Tags: State Your Case | NewsTalk 100 | knoxnews
We've launched a new knoxnews.com today. I thought some folks might like to see the last three designs of knoxnews (sorry, not sure if I have one from further back, unfortunately).
The first was used for three or four years and was "retired" in April 2005. We thought it was very tired by then.
The second one is the original successor look, but I noticed in looking at the home page yesterday, we had made more "adjustmenets" by the end of its run than I had thought.
The one on the right is an early morning shot of the new, current design. You can click on each image to get a larger view.
Update: Jay Small explains many of the nuances.
Knoxville News Sentinel | knoxnews | newspapers
This must rank just behind a Paris sighting among celebrity watchers.
While the paparazzi didn't get his photo, journalism professor and blogger Bryan Murley cornered Will Sullivan of exclusive Palm Beach for an online interview.
Sullivan on blogging:
My blog format evolved out of basically trying to save my sanity. I started off in the traditional format, doing a topical posts daily, but I really got addicted to RSS feeds. (I currently subscribe to 986 feeds.) And keeping up on those at least semi-daily takes a lot of time. So I couldn’t do that, post links and the longer topical diatribes and make sure I had clean clothes and a functioning car at the same time. So now I do the digests and little bits of opinion/snark with sparse topical posts.
And, of course, read Sullivan's blog.
This knoxnews sign went up on the News Sentinel building yesterday. This was taken about 7;30 a.m. today from the U.S. 129 ramp back to I-40/75 westbound
Thanks Bruce Hartmann, Lisa Duncan and Mark Beaty!
Tags: News Sentinel | knoxnews | newspapers
Whew, everybody's gaga over Facebook. It's the "new, new" thing and it isn't even new!
Just look at these blog search results.
What changed?
Well, expanding it beyond college students helped, but the rage yesterday was a new study that found, heavens, most Facebook at college-educated over-achieving yuppie pups. It's interesting reading.
But really what's giving Facebook its "new, new" status is the release of the Facebook API, which opened up the network to others making all kinds of useful and not so useful toys for it. LinkedIn is already trying to play catchup, but even through the "Facebook Platform" was only announced on May 28, it may be too late.
BlackRimGlasses says:
I’m wondering if this is going to be a trend from all web based applications. The insertion of hooks into the base level operating system (the application as it were) that allows the insertion of application logic into the over-all framework.
And Mathew Ingram thinks LinkedIn's failure to have an API platform makes it the new, new Friendster, and that's a new, new no, no.
The hint from Facebook's success is that closed is, well, closed as in limited. Who wants limits? Programming hooks that allow customization and extension end up supporting and enhancing Web applications just like having developers and third party vendors grows a user base for game boxes, for instance.
Will all the world be on Facebook by, oh, 5:45 tomorrow. Nope. They haven't completely found the right flavors for all.
Rex Hammock, for one, isn't completely drinking the Kool-Aid, but he's sipping:
As great as the Facebook platform is — and one of these days, I’ll explain in detail exactly what makes it so great — it won’t break through to the other side until I can have my powered-by Facebook identity residing at rexhammock.com and allow people who may not be powering their identity with Facebook to interact with me — to join my groups, to poke me, whatever — in the same way those who use another service for e-mail can reach me.
That's the thing about new, new things. After the new wears off, they have to gain our attention with their real value. I've never been a MySpacer (I wasn't 18 at the right time, I guess), but I've been on LinkedIn for a long time and Facebook for several months.
Maybe it's my age, maybe it's how I use it, maybe it's just me, but I find both interesting, and Facebook engaging and fun, but neither come anywhere near approaching a digital must-have app or service like, say, an RSS reader like Google Reader. The Facebook API, however, holds the promise that some smart someone will develop something that I just can't live without.
And then, I'm locked into their open platform. If it works, it's brilliant. Even if it's less than brilliant, it may mean the difference between long-term success and a soon-to-be Friendster.
Tags: Facebook | LinkedIn | social networks
10 Free Minimalist Word Processors for Greater Productivity
And, lest we forget, updated Google Apps features
Tags: free web apps | free software
What, you say. Well, hang with me here.
I spaced this post from Mindy McAdams on young people last week, but Melissa Worden drew me back to it with her "good reads" list.
Their interpersonal networks might well reconfigure over time. The software or sites they use might well change or be replaced by others. But their habit of staying connected digitally, checking for updates, making plans, sharing gossip, getting information -- this will likely remain their habit, their means of keeping in touch with the world around them, for the rest of their lives.
That's why we need to understand these spaces where young people interact. I don't know if it really requires setting up a bureau in Second Life, but it certainly does demand our attention -- immediately, today.
The implication of this generally is that that's not a good trend for printed newspapers. The readership habits, or lack thereof, that develop early in life follow one throughout life, hence newspaper in education programs, youth features in newspapers, youth-oriented niche newspapers products, etc.
I may be dreaming, but I do think the information consumption habits of today's youth are good news for newspapers -- just not the printed paper. The amount of information and the sources of that information that our teenage son requires about the subjects that interest him are exponentially greater than what was even readily available when I was a teen.
This demand for information presents opportunities now (Facebook, MySpace, music sites, IM, breaking news, online video), but won't it grow heavier in demand as they start needing information for business/careers and managing their life and families? Isn't it like video game players being better surgeons?
That portends tremendous potential for audience growth in term of numbers and in terms of time spent, or engagement. But it's doubtful they will come to traditioanl newspaper products based on the habits they are wiring into their behavior today; we need, as Mindy McAdams exhorts, to start learning their preferred information means and methods now.
And we're not talking lame "youth-oriented" features in newspapers. And to those that say (and I actually heard something along this line RECENTLY) oh, they'll start reading newspapers when they put down roots and have children in school. I hear the prices of Dutch bulbs are rising.
Tags: social networks | youth | news demographics | readership | newspapers
Sometimes the react is better than the first act.
Mathew Ingram and Steve Yelvington have good posts on British newspaper consultant John Duncan Webster's Dictionary of Audience Exaggeration: How internet metrics promote the myth of the dying newspaper.
Yelvington has several nuggets, but this one I can't pass up quoting:
However, the notion that a newspaper's daily print sales figures should be multiplied by some factor to derive actual readers is wishful-thinking crap, and especially so in markets where the newspaper is home delivered, such as is typical in the United States. Try dividing! Once again, I ran over this morning's paper with my car on my way to work.
Tags: print readership | newspapers | internet metrics
More on John Battelle's journey to the North Mississippi hill country. (An earlier post is here.)
Battelle is a Silicon Valley icon who was a founder of Wired magazine, a founder of The Industry Standard, wrote the book on Google. He is an entrepreneurial journalist who started and runs a blog business called Federated Media and is an authoritative source on search engines from his Searchblog perch. But on a hot June day in the back woods of the Deep South:
I realized that beyond the time I spent with my children, or the moments I steal with my wife, I had found a place where the incessant question we all seem driven by was answered. What else might I be doing?
He's got it right with the North Mississippi All-Stars, who have a DVD coming out on June 26.
UFO Sighting in Tennessee by 80,000! Possible Abductions ... With Photo!
Not as out there as recent reality.
Tags: Bonnaroo | Flaming Lips | UFO
Somebody put online video on fast forward.
From a new survey:
Daily vidoe usage up 56 percent over last year
14 percent of American 12 to 64 watch online video daily.
80 percent of 18 to 24s watch video at least once a week.
News stories are reported by consumers as the most frequently viewed video they watch regularly on the Internet. Over a third of online Americans 12 to 64 watch online video news stories regularly.
-- Magid Media Futures news release
While not broken down by demos, we also are seeing dramatic yeear-over-year growth in the number of video streams develivered from knoxnews via the AP video player.
(via LostRemote)
Tags: online video | news videos | video usage
Leonard Pitts Jr. writes a column for the Miami Herald that is syndicated nationally. He won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2004 and is the author of "Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood
On June 3, he gave what a number of racial fringe groups and even conservative bloggers have been clamoring: A national stage for the issues swirling about the horrific January murders of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom.
But wait, Pitts has now been targeted by white supremacists for his column. One said he would not shed a tear if some "loony" killed the writer.
What'd Pitts do? Well, in putting the story in the limelight just like the fringe groups have been demanding, he didn't get the highly charged racial spin right.
Let see some of the things Pitts said about the campaign to portray the young couple's murder as a racial hate crime:
Part of me thinks I should consider the source and let this slide. But the argument being advanced here is so utterly, abysmally, stupidly, self-servingly wrong that I cannot help but respond.
... And here I'm obligated -- because I'm black -- to say that if the defendants in this case did what they are accused of doing, I'd be happy to see them rot under the jailhouse. Sadly, that needs saying because there are people who will not take it as a given.
But with that obligation fulfilled, let me add that I am likewise unkindly disposed toward the crackpots, incendiaries and flat-out racists who have chosen this tragedy upon which to take an obscene and ludicrous stand. I have four words for them and any other white Americans who feel themselves similarly victimized.
Cry me a river.
Media trade pub Editor and Publisher reported Tuesday that one site has published Pitts' home address and telephone number and the columnist has received threats.
When the Miami Herald asked Roanoke, Va., based site Overthrown.com to remove the personal information, site editor Bill White said:
We have no intention of removing Mr. Pitts' personal information. Frankly, if some loony took the info and killed him, I wouldn't shed a tear. That also goes for your whole newsroom.
Showing the love! Mr. White does understand hate.
Tags: channon christian | Chris Newsom | racial hate crimes
This is just funnier than Jon Stewart, but at least it means my kids are on top of the news.
The people most knowledgeable about news events, according to a new Pew study, are:
... those who got their news from the Web sites of major papers and those who watched programs like The Colbert Report or The Daily Show; they correctly answered 54 percent of the questions about current affairs, while regular viewers of local TV news and network morning shows got only about 35 percent right.
I'm sure it's the newspaper Web sites, right? Well, yes.
Tags: pew study | The Daily Show | he Colbert Report
Rex Hammock notes that AT&T, the telephone company formerly known as BellSouth in these parts, is offering an unadvertised $10 DSL rate as part of a government settlement.
AN AP story from late yesterday says:
The DSL, or digital subscriber line, plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved last December.
See his post for details.
Ronco, of Veg-O-Matic and the Pocket Fisherman fame, has filed for bankruptcy.
Company founder Ron Popell, who sold the company two years ago, also brought modern civilization devices that scrambled eggs inside the shell, a food dehydrator, a pasta-maker and a spray to cover bald spots on people's heads.
Life won't be the same.
Tags: Veg-O-Matic | Ronco
Missed this yesterday. It was company namesake Edward Wyllis Scripps' birth date (June 18, 1854 – March 12, 1926).
I often wonder what creativity and daring the entrepreneurial newspaper barons of the early 20th century would have brought to the industry's current situation.
Had they lived in this era, they could very well have built empires in completely different markets. But had they chose newspapers, what ideas would have have brought to bear?
They were highly individualistic -- more often than not eccentric -- original thinkers and bare-knuckled competitors who took risks.
These may be times when those very attributes are needed to remake the industry.
Updated: Some info on E.W. Scripps from the James Logan Courier, which is produced by students of James Logan High School's Journalism and News Production classes. The high school is in Union City, CA.
Tags: press barons | E.W. Scripps | entrepreneurship
Angela Grant has it right.
I think a "newscast" on the Internet is the inappropriate repurposing of TV to the Web. If I want to view a string of videos, I want them to be of my choosing. Produce enough video, organize them, make them searchable and shareable and the "channel" of programming will develop. The users will create the playlist.
I've looked at a lot of the Web newscasts and I have difficulty staying with them to the end, even if they are not longer than five minutes.
Do newscasts on news Web sites work for you?
Tags: video | video news
Karen Knotts, one of the Book Bandits, has posted a Chicken & Sausage Jambalaya recipe that sounds right tasty.
She says it came from a "gazillion-year-old Southern Living magazine" and doesn't have anything to do with books at all, except:
... if you decide to try this recipe, please leave a comment and tell me about your favorite book, old and new.
That's the deal.
It's got to be better than the meatloaf that Lil' Ed & the Blue Imperials gets served in "Icicles In My Meatloaf" from last June's Rattlensake
I didn't want to rock her boat
but there were little icicles in my meatloaf.
Great Chicago slide in a house-rockin' tune. If you've never heard of them, here's the band's web site.
Try 'em both.
Tags: Lil' Ed & the Blue Imperials | recipe | jambalaya
Between vacation and some work projects, I've slowed down, but I'm continuing. This is for last week (week ending June 10). Did some jogging on a wonderful bike trail in Westerville, Ohio.
And I also noticed the L.A. Time history of fatblogging.
Sessions
Calories burned
Time exercising
Miles jogged
2
1063
1:18
6.50
4
2000
3:15
No advice
The month-to-date miles is 6.5.
Now, gotta run.
Tags: jogging | fatbloggers | jason calacanis
2007 is the year the facsimile machine died?
Not everyone agrees.
I still have a fax machine on my desk, but it startled me when it rang the other day. I do have some regular junk faxers, which like cockroaches, will probably outlive the end of the earth, but other than that, I think I receive something I actually need to have about once every five or six months. I could live without it.
The newspaper and the newsroom still get a lot of information via fax. Says something about the industry. Says something about PR folks, too.
Tags: fax | facsimile machines | antiquated technology
John Battelle takes a break from covering search engines and is on a road trip to Bonnaroo. He posted on Memphis and a trek to the North Mississippi haunts of the blues Dickenson brothers and the festival in Manchester. Just waiting for more on what John makes of the Roo.
Tags: North Mississippi All-Stars | Bonnarro | John Battelle
Newscoma has pointed out a fascinating autobiography.
Tags: Newscoma | Squirrel Queen
Jay Small, fellow Scripps interactive media colleague, said the other day he's going to start writing and opining more on his site when he gives up being an expert. That's good news because he always has some expert things to say about online and media.
Tags: consultant | small initiatives
An interesting eye track side study by Nora Paul and Laura Ruel looks at what navigation methods users chose when viewing a photo slide show using a Washington Post slide show that used several navigation types.
Here's which ones people chose:
- Next 19 (56%)
- Numbers 8 (23%)
- Arrow 5 (15%)
- Autoplay 2 ( 6%)
- Thumbnail 0
The results were pretty much the same for the number of slides in the package the views looked at, but weren't the same for the amount of time spent on the slide based on the navigation method.
They noted this:
But perhaps the most interesting observation was the very low level usage of the non-linear approach (and when it was used, how few slides were observed.) Is the linear orientation to looking through material so hard-wired into our media usage that it is, and will continue to be, the preferred way to take in media?
Tags: slide shows | online design | eye track studies
Steve Rubel is drawing on a number of sources to come up with a solution to "always on" that allows him to be productive.
The underpinning of all the ideas is that we're dealing with too much information, disruptions, meetings, schedules, RSS feeds, email, blogs, telephone calls, voice mail to accomplish much.
He's rallying to Marc Andreessen's The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity and Tim Ferriss' ideas in his book "The 4-Hour Work Week
I haven't had time to read Ferriss' biz best seller, but I did read Andressen's post.
His advice:
- Don't keep a schedule
- Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
- Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
- Then, throughout the rest of the day, use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.
- Structured Procrastination.
- The other key two-word tactic: Strategic Incompetence.
- Do email exactly twice a day -- say, once first thing in the morning, and once at the end of the workday.
- When you do process email, do it like this: First, always finish each of your two daily email sessions with a completely empty inbox. Second, when doing email, either answer or file every single message until you get to that empty inbox state of grace
- Don't answer the phone.
- Hide in an IPod.
- Start the day with a real, sit-down breakfast.
- Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.
- Do something you love.
Read his whole post to add a few layers to these concepts. You crackberry addicts may find his suggestions idealistic -- and they may be -- but information smog does create real productivity issues.
One of Andreessen's points is that most productivity systems require so much attention to their process that it's just too much effort and may not really free you up to focus on what's really important. Different styles for different folks.
But for either, Rubel does have a second important point, an attention crash is coming. That could be big bad news for lots of Internet products that people decide they just don't need. At some point, people will begin filtering out -- they already do.
And that may provide opportunities for information providers who can help reduce the smog. MORE, as Rusty Coats often noted in his market research days, is not a selling point. More is not time-saving. More doesn't mean better. More doesn't make life simpler or better. MORE by itself doesn't solve the customer's need; indeed, less may.
Yet, whenever a new news product/service is announced, MORE is touted as part of the "new and improved features" while there's ample evidence that's exactly what's not wanted.
Products and services, in particular news products, that understand where MORE fits will be the winners in an Attention Crash.
(via Journerdism)
Tags: attention, Marc Andreessen, Tim Ferriss, Steve Rubel
The NCAA is out of its mind.
That may not be news, but it is Steve Safran's take on the NCAA's blogger blunder.
Michael Silence has several more links to coverage of the ejection of a Kentucky sports writer for blogging at a college baseball game. And Silence has more here, here, here and here.
Howard Weaver, the VP of News at McClatchy, did a post:
I think we can (and will) make strong legal arguments about our right to cover public events being held in (mainly) publicly owned venues. But even though legal options are naturally limited, there's a lot more involved here than legalities.
Dan Gillmor posted on it, too:
... the paper should ask readers to blog the game themselves, from TV sets or from the stands, or both — and then point to the best reader game-blogs.
Bryan Murley points to more posts and says:
This is idiotic on so many levels that it’s incredible that the NCAA would stoop to such stupidity. Wait, strike that.
Lots of others are writing about it as well.
My bet is the NCAA will pretend the world is flat, that college athletes go to college primarily to get an education, and coaches will limit text messaging to recruits. And blogging during a game will continue to be verboten as long as ESPN says so.
Course, I'm covering this game on a play-by-play basis so I suspect the NCAA roustabouts will roust me at any moment and yank my blogging credentials. Wait, I don't have any blogging credentials.
Tags: NCAA | blogging | Brian Bennett
If you're a fan of Bonnaroo and aren't there this year, follow our coverage on knoxnews.
Online producer Lauren Spuhler, and Bonnaroo vet, will be blogging, doing audio podcasts and shooting videos and photos. And when that's not keeping her busy, she'll be twittering. Keep track of her twits.
Music writer Wayne Bledsoe, a grizzled vet of the outdoor concert in Manchester, Tenn., will be filing stories.
And the intrepid Saul Young will be capturing scene in photos and admiring the ladies.
We've already got some video mini-profiles of the Knoxvegas bands that will be performing, but Spuhler turns up the volume tomorrow when she arrives on the scene.
Update: Assistant Business Editor Roger Harris notes that I missed one: business writer Andrew Eder. Hmmm, there are economic issues that could be studied there. Actually, he explains what he's doing on his blog.
Tags: Bonnaroo | Manchester | music festival | Bonnaroo blogging
Dr. Beach says Ocracoke Island has the best beaches in the nation in his 2007 list.
He's right. It is an island of most wonderful beaches and a special place. We've been several times on family vacations.
It was the first time a beach in Florida and Hawaii didn’t take the top spot, but Ocracoke has been in the Top Five the last two years.
From an Associated Press story about Florida International University professor Stephen “Dr. Beach” Leatherman list this year::
Technically, it's Ocracoke Lifeguarded Beach that is the nation's best. But Leatherman said there's little that separates those 300 yards of postcard-perfect sand from the rest of the island, almost all of which is protected from development as part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
"Here, you have 14 miles of unspoiled, undisturbed barrier beach," said Leatherman, director of Florida International's laboratory for coastal research. "Where do you find that in the world?"
The photo to the right (click to photo to enlarge) is from our 2001 vacation at Ocracoke Island. Some 2001 photos and some 2002 photos.
(via Matt Lail who notes that Leatherman is a N.C. State grad)
Tags: ocracoke | Dr. Beach | beaches | Ocracoke Island
At the first of the week, my wife reserved a U-Haul truck to move some furniture from her sister's house in Columbus, Ohio, to our son's apartment in Chapel Hill, NC.
She'd scheduled to pick up the U-Haul truck in Columbus.
So early Saturday morning, she got a call that our U-Haul was at the Morse Road U-Haul in Columbus.
When we got there, the 10-foot truck we had reserved was nowhere to be found; they had rented it to someone else despite having reserved it and despite having called about two hours earlier to say come pick it up.
Instead -- at the same cost -- they gave us one more than double that size -- 24 feet. We really didn't have enough stuff to fill a 10-foot and now we have a 24-foot truck that is like one-eighth full. Tomororw, I'll be driving a nearly empty big-honking U-Haul to down I-77 and I-40 to Chapel Hill.
That's quality for you: Supersized when you don't need it.
More on Brittney Gilbert, the Nashville blogger who abruptly quit her job, as a full-time blogger for a Nashville TV station ...
Michael Silence: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here. here, here and the poll
And much, much more.
Did she connect with people or what!
Tags: Brittney Gilbert | Nashville is Talking | Nashville blogger
Bryan Murley interviews Ryan Sholin.
Brittney Gilbert, a really distinctive voice and blogging pioneer at a MSM TV station, resigned her job.
Here's her resignation post on Nashville is Talking and a post on her personal site.
Apparently, a blog slug fest over a link she did was the last hit she wanted to take.
Perhaps by being the beneficiary of a full-time blogging gig that a lot of people would love to have it means that I am a “pseudo-quasi-celebrity” who has to take the insults and criticisms and constant job threatening with the territory. But, I’m not cut out for it. I thought I was, but I’m not.
... This is the internet. People are vicious. They are even more vicious when they fail to make any distinction between you and a feelingless, faceless media company.
I don't know Brittney. I've never met her, but I have read har. She did a great job for WKRN. I can, however, fully understand. People at the other end of the keyboard sometimes do forget they're talking to people. Things are said that would never be said face-to-face. I, like, her, wish there were a few things I hadn't clicked the "save" or "send" button to.
And, yes, she's right when she says being criticized seemed to be OK when she came to be a face of a media company. It just comes with the territory.
I wish her luck. From the supportive comments on both sites above, she obviously made many, many great friends.
(With apologies for stealing your blog post title. It was too good.).
Tags: Brittney Gilbert | Nashville is Talking | Nashville blogger
A visit to Rosslyn Chapel and the castle ruins during our vacation trip to Scotland.
Tags: Scotland | Rosslyn Chapel | video
A video of Craigmillar Castle on the outskirts of Edinburgh in Scotland. Great castle to see.
Tags: Scotland | Edinburgh | Craigmillar Castle | video
Vacation photos from Scotland taken by Mark Lail and Jack Lail. We were in Scotland from May 27 until June 2, 2007. Some HRD photos are here.
Tags: Scotland | Loch Ness | Edinburgh | | Rosslyn Chapel | Craigmillar Castle | photos
Most of the ways we tend to think about innovation and innovators are just wrong, based on comic book-like fables of eureka moments and genius super heros.
That's some of what I got from Scott Berkun's new book, The Myths of Innovation
I got a PR email about this book a few weeks ago that piqued my interest. I sent around an email to some co-workers suggesting it might be a good book to take on vacation. One replied: You'd take that to the beach?
Well, I'm geeky and I wasn't headed to the beach, but to Edinburgh, Scotland.
The title is on the stodgy side, suggesting a voluminous tome on innovation through the ages. But the book is not dense at all: it's 175 pages of good-sized print with photos and drawings scattered about. After you read the preface, you can skip around chapters if you like, but I read it straight through. Don't overlook the footnotes, there are some gems of factoids there. It's a quick read, even with footnotes.
It was appropriate for the trip.
Here I was visiting Rosslyn Chapel, a fascinating medieval chapel wrapped in "Da Vinci Code" lore, the legendary hiding place of the Holy Grail and other treasures, reading a book about the modern-day holy grail: the secret of how to innovate and be creative.
Everybody wants the secret. For an industry like I'm in, the mainstream media with its troubled papers, innovation is a magic elixir, the sword in the stone, the philosopher's stone. Our modern-day fascination with innovation is almost medieval in its mysticism. Seers and stars abound as do fakers and shames.
The actual secret of innovation often seems the province of a secret order like a modern day Knights Templar or maybe imparted by being crowned upon the "Stone of Destiny," which I also saw at Edinburgh Castle. Held to be the stone pillow of Jacob in the Bible, it's an unassuming block of sandstone for all its imbued magical powers.
These are the mysteries explored by Berkun, who worked on the Internet Explorer team for Microsoft during the "browser wars" of the late 1990s and now is a consultant and writer and teacher of creative thinking at Washington University.
While exploring the myths of innovation, he comes up with least 10 "big ideas" about the nature of what innovation is (or is not):
- It rarely happens as an epiphany.
- Its history is not a straight time line of progress.
- There is no playbook or regime for success.
- For many reasons, good ideas aren't often welcome.
- The lone inventor is rare and innovators are often competing groups working on the same problem
- Good ideas abound -- everybody has them.
- Managers have no clue of what to do (that took a chapter?).
- The best ideas don't always win.
- It's not the chance encounter; it's what you do with it.
- Innovations can be -- and most often are -- good and evil.
Beyond my simplifications, there are a wealth of stories and facts and observations about innovations -- and how they happen -- in the book from the wheel to Craigslist. He does provide ample clues to finding the secrets to successfully innovating.
Worth reading, even if you're not on vacation.
Tags: scott berkun | innovation | The Myths of Innovation