When I was in an agency role, I took a keen interest in reading up on the latest trends, approaches and best practices. Project management was one such field; I’ve held PM roles at various points of my career and enjoy the interaction with clients. One of my favorite reads, as mentioned before, is The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun.
Scott has a new book out, The Myths of Innovation. Even with my MBA program taking many hours of my week, this book was on my short list. It was a surprise when I had won a signed copy of the book in a comment raffle on http://scottberkun.com/blog/. Note to self: nothing like a comment raffle to strike up a conversation.
I tore through the book in a few days. At ~150 pages, it was a nice read and touched on something I mentioned to developers at job(-1): We’re really building the Erie Canal. This usually gets funny looks. What? A canal? Are we going for a boat ride or something? No. Take a look at the early nineteenth century. Commerce was dominated by wind-driven ships and slow moving wagons. The Erie canal utilized a series of engineering wonders to accelerate the speed of commerce, linking New York with the Great Lakes. Sure enough, the rise of railroad outshined this accomplishment in due time.
Work that is being executed now by some of the most brilliant minds is the same. In 20 years, we’ll look back and think “how quaint.” So if we’re building something that will be a joke to our children, why bother? Because innovation is cumulative. A CMS or social network could spur the development of the next great platform. How we do our work is of utmost importance. As managers, are we instilling innovation and excellence?
As for the book, I would recommend it without reservation to anyone with an interest in business strategy or technology.
0 Responses to “Review: The Myths of Innovation”