Biography Fridays: Scott Berkun, From Innovation to Speaking Out About Them

It’s time for Biography Fridays once again. If you missed last week, which was the start of this series, feel free to check out Eric Gruber, the Article Marketing Expert and how his frustration lead to innovation online in the internet marketing circle. Today, we’ll glide on over to Scott Berkun, who formerly worked at Microsoft as a project manager. He has written several books already which includes:

What drawn me to Scott was the simplicity of his style in presenting the ideas he had. Particularly with the Carnegie Mellon University talk on March 27, 2008, as he dives into the reasons why he wrote The Myths of Innovation, I couldn’t help but think about how much I wanted to speak like to him. Thus, on Scott’s website, he muses about creativity and the practical approaches to managing them through the many essays and articles available in the archives.

Furthermore, you would think that someone as young and successful as Scott would dwindle in the spotlight by now because of the mass publicity he is exposed to, but through his book Confessions of a Public Speaker, he explains how he handled that. In fact, what happened is he really pulls through as a super star speaker making prose and practical advice combined, entertaining. Here’s a clip through which he explains how you can present any topic in under 5 minutes on the Ignite Show.

Spoken in a very down-to-earth manner, Scott makes the act of presenting your ideas enjoyable. I found myself searching for more clips and presentations that Scott had done in the past way before Confessions of a Public Speaker was published. What I found was, one of the key ingredients through which makes Scott successful is his narrative form.

He tells stories whether it’s through trivia, personal experiences or frustrations that is happening and explores it in depth. The best part is he ties it into business because that’s where his expertise lies. With a resume on appearances in the The New York Times, Wired Magazine, The Huffington Post and more, the microphone isn’t going to be disappearing for Scott any time soon. He works as a speaker and writer full-time. This is what he does for a living. His Hire Me page explains all that.

Another thing I admire about Scott is he knows well what his purpose is and he does so by executing it to his utmost potential. Thus, with his books, following the muse to which he explores and challenges his creative drive for innovation, project design and speaking, he was able to make research a reality. He truly is an entrepreneur living the dream of doing what he is passionate about.

Talking About Innovation

I took some notes on the talk Scott gave to Carnegie on The Myths of Innovation. There were some slides which I felt was interesting to point out and the questions and ideas you could ponder on as Scott unravels the mysteries behind creativity. Using history as the pedestal for debunking what has lead ideas to the forefront, Scott touches on the finer points of how innovation has come to be.

Following along the lines of Van Gogh, Edison, Michelangelo, Bob Dylan, Newton and Einstein, what was it that gave them that ‘a-ha’ moment? Scott explored the process behind the creativity and through his personal observation, what he saw was they all believed in an idea and followed it until it worked.

Now all this may sound easy but the time it takes to see an idea become successful is long. You’re constantly seeking alternatives and the exploration part of the process is where most of the failures are seen. So what Scott began to noticed was the habits and the behavior before the ‘magic moment’ is what leads to innovation. The breakthrough comes with long, persistent hard work. With that, it brings a type of change as well.

For most, this may not be received with open arms. That may be because we’re so comfortable in our own habitual ways that the point of transition takes time. Therefore, for innovation to truly become effective, it needs to seep through our society.

When we can see the negative implications and how the changes are received, we can also determine if an idea will sustain or not. So while you see something now, it took a long time to get there. It’s not an overnight thing and that is one of the most misunderstood myth. The process from exploration to innovation is pretty much like going into business for yourself.

This is true for William McKnight who recognized that creativity is something that needs to be explored. When he had an employee who would not stop in exploring an idea and it finally came to fruitionsuccessfully, he felt that how he did business had to be changed. This must also be understood by management as well, especially when mistakes are going to be made. With that, he wrote this statement:

Companies like Google are exercising this work ethic today as they let their employees devote at least 20% of their time to work on side projects that they like. Most of these projects came to be what we use widely now such as Gmail and Adsense. Moreover, this is reflective of the 80/20 rule where the idea is to use the least amount of time to work on what really matters. This was studied by economist Vilfredo Pareto who found that 80% of the population was owned by 20% of the economy.

Over the years, this idea spread further into time management, lifestyle design and production. Entrepreneurs like Richard Koch, Timothy Ferriss, Yaro Starak, David Risley and many others has praised it with open arms. Not only that, they are practitioners of it. So if you’re thinking creativity has it’s time and place, you’re probably right. Without practicing it daily though, the innovations of today might not have had a place in our lives.

While Scott didn’t specify creativity coming specifically from the 80/20 rule, it was hinted in the working ethics for companies who want innovation to happen. Along with that, the mistakes should not be overlooked nor should it be of any surprise because it’s necessary for growth.

Final Thoughts on Scott Berkun

Readers who find topics on creativity, management and self-development interesting might want to browse Scott Berkun’s site. He has over 60 essays at the moment and the eclectic mix of sense of humor, facts and media will add to your enjoyment.

The only thing which I found Steve to lack on is there isn’t much strategies to organizing your ideas. There’s a lot to say but not much when it comes to bringing it together. So there is creativity here and what he says makes sense however, how can we put it to practical use? One might find him more of an entertainer in this area with a lot of opinions on history then. But as long as you can find a gem worth being inspired from, he would have made his point. Feel free to explore more of Scott’s books below.