Scott Berkun's Blog, page 81

Winners of 5 signed copies are…

Thanks to all 50+ of you who left a comment to win a signed copy of Myths.  The five (well, six) winners are:

Jack (not afraid to cheat) Dempsey
Joe Topinka
Ray Pure Spontaneity
Michael Hodgson
Payam
Alex "sucking up sometimes wins" Dev

I just sent all of you an email which you need to respond to to claim your prize :)

Someone

Myths Day results (Thanks!)

Yesterday was awesome - 100+ people chipped in to help spread the word. There were over 250 tweets, more than 171 (!) facebook posts, and nearly a dozen blog entries.  

The berkun fan club / pr squad, led by Andrew McAdams, Alex Becker Allison Jacobsen, helped drive the above activity, and everyone on the squad who lended a hand was awesome. Collectively we learned a ton about how to do this and it will be better next time around.

The results: we got the new edition up from #15,000 on amazon all the way to #1049.  Amazing! And the numbers are still strong today (book page here).

Facebook posts: 171
Blog posts: 12
Tweets: 250 tweets (#mythsday)
Initial amazon rank: #15,225
Final amazon rank: #1,049

I'm supremely grateful. Hope you notice some extra love coming through in the writing here on the blog the next few weeks.

And if you forgot to lend a hand - it's never too late. Every little mention has value, and for the next month or two yesterday's wave of PR will generate rebound effects, with people posting about the book after it arrives, or they read it. There have been 5 new amazon reviews already this week (Thanks to Mark, Vern, Christine, Heather and John) and hopefully we'll see more.  These have huge value.

Here's a list of all the blog pingbacks I got for people who posted on their blogs. If you wrote something and aren't listed, just leave a comment with a link and I'll add you in:

The Occasional CEO
Bobulate
Patrick Gannon
FineGraphicArts
Dave Graham
Allergeek
PmTechnix
La BI ça vous gagne!
Bits and Pieces

I'm going to get some rest now. Thanks all.

5 signed copies of Myths – leave a comment!

I'll pick 5 people to send a brand new signed copy of the paperback edition of Myths of Innovation. I'll even write a personal note in there for you, with personalized innovation advice.  Can't do better than that.

Leave a comment to enter.  I'll count you twice if you say something clever enough to make me smile.  I'll count you 3x if it's about innovation or creativity in some way.

(Closes at midnight PST – at the end of #mythsday).

Or if you can't wait, help with #mythsday, and buy a copy anyway! The book is currently ranked at #1326! Buy now and you'll help set the high mark.

Top Ten Innovation Myths in the U.S.

A surprise for #Mythsday – I'm now writing for the Huffington Post.  First article is fun top ten, slide show thing, with some good stories I bet you haven't heard before (Sliced bread, Resse's peanut butter cups, Apple, Ford and more).

Top 10 Innovation Myths in the U.S. @ Huffington Post

Not sure about these slide show things, but apparently they're quite popular at the HuffPo.

Lets hope this helps with the #mythday goal for the book's Amazon ranking.  Currently it's up from 12,000 to 2,230.  Thanks to everyone who has bought the book today! Lets see how high we can go.

Today is Myths of Innovation day! help wanted

If you have been waiting to buy 6,434 copies of the myths of innovation for your entire company, or have a coupon for a hour of advertising on all major networks burning a hole in your pocket, now is the best time ever in history to pull the trigger.

There are people who like my work, some who hate it, but most of the world has no idea who I am. PR helps reach that last group, and you know more people I don't know than I do.

Today, if you can post on your blog, post to facebook or twitter, or buy the book today, it will help me and my future work more than you know.

Here's a good example of an easy blog post you can do in 30 seconds. Make sure to include an image of the cover, and link it to amazon.

If you're on twitter, here's a sample you can use.

The goal: We're trying to see how high we can get the amazon rank to go. It started at 12,000. Can we break 5,000? The higher the ranking, the more exposure the book gets across all of amazon.com.

I'll be posting cool stuff all day, with some more prizes, so stay tuned.

Free webcast begins at 10am PST / 1pm EST.

Thanks! I'll be watching. Appreciate the help more than you know.

The future of golf: Smash-Putt (Seattle)

If you live in Seattle and like fun you owe it to yourself to check out Smash Putt: a unique arts/sports/golf experience, open for its last weekend of the year (perhaps all time!).

The basic idea: what if you take crazy artists and engineers and let them rethink miniature golf?

You get:

A full service bar (It's a 21+ experience, with exceptions on one day)
Holes that include catapults, power drills and guns
Experiments in both physics and silliness
A stellar soundtrack (sometimes)
Full gallery of the madness here

We went last weekend and had a great time. It's crowded and chaotic, but totally worth it. For extra fun, it's in the old Immigration building in downtown Seattle, making for a bizarre, but ultimately fun experience.

This is the last weekend it will run in Seattle. Buy tickets in advance here

($12-15 – they tend to sell out if you wait)

Have an Innovation question? I will answer!

For tommorow's webcast I'm promising to answer any questions on innovation, creativity or creative work you ask.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post, or over here – TODAY. The webcast is 10am PST tomorrow, and the longer you wait, the less chance I'll be able to work it in.

Have an issue you're struggling with? Advice for a situation? Something your organization struggles with? A method or story you want an expert's opinion on? Now is your chance.

Upcoming speaking: Seattle + more

Some speaking dates over the next few weeks:

Wed Oct 13th (tommorow!), Free online webcast, 10am PST
Sun Oct 17th, 4pm. Ada's Bookstore (Seattle) (this will be informal – more of a book signing / Q&A)
Tues, Nov 2nd, 7pm Mt Baker Theater,  Bellingham, WA
Thurs, Nov 11th, Construx: Executive Summit ($, Seattle)

Hope to see you. The webcast will be fun – don't miss that one

The Social Network: movie review

Good movies about software are hard to make. That's why few people try and those who do mostly end up with mediocre films. David Fincher (Fight Club, Curious Case of Benjamin Button) gets at least one thing right in his new film: pace. This movie, for a drama about young adults making software, is smart, quick and unrelenting in its progression. The Social Network is a good, well acted, well scripted drama, which provokes questions about ideas, ownership, ethics and relationships (End of short review).

I didn't read the book the film is based on, Accidental Billionaires, as the author's style of dramatization and invention (He also wrote Bringing down the house) has earned him a reputation for stretching the limits of what can be called reporting. Its foolish to expect Hollywood films to have much interest in upholding literal truths.

However I have researched Facebook history in the past, and it's clear Zuckerberg was not a great guy in his early years (The New Yorker profile suggests Zuckerberg conceeds this). He managed to upset many people he worked with early in his career, being sued by some of his first employers, and his best friend / co-founder of Facebook. The details of the movie are exaggerated as films, by their nature, tend to be, but the spirit seems not far from the Mark (pun!).  And it's the spirit represented that's the most interesting thing about the film.

Nearly everyone is portrayed as shallow, arrogant, selfish and superficial. Some are morons, others are brilliant, but the tone is youthful confusion over what matters. And this reflects our dilemma over what to make of the worst elements of social media: a playing out of high school cliques, displays of 'status' to impress others, and a confusion offer what a friend or authenticity actually are. The movie itself shows " a social network" with Mark at it's center – but its a sad, broken and treacherous one.

The film has been criticized for poorly portraying women, which is true, but this misses how the film poorly portrays everyone. Nearly every character is an embarrassment in some significant way, and the movie is largely criticizing the shallowness of elites (Harvard, Silicon valley, lawyers, VCs, the upper class, etc.).  The movie is a critique of the kinds of people who would choose to profit from changing the world based on the model of "facebooks" (e.g. yearbooks), relationship status and friending people. The point is:  it's a 19 or 20 year old view of the universe, for better and, as the movie emphasizes, for worse. It's notable Zuckerberg's fiancé, with whom he was dating the entire duration of the time shown in the film, isn't mentioned much less seen. But otherwise it's hard to find particular bias: I doubt anyone feels great about how they are portrayed in this movie.

I've never met Zuckerberg, but his portrayal here is reminiscent of some people I knew in my Computer Science classes at CMU and in the tech sector today: young men who are arrogant, shy, brilliant, awkward, angry, passive-aggressive, misunderstood and possibly vicious.You'll find a handful of people like this in any CS classroom, or in any tech start-up or IT department. One appeal of computers is they do exactly what you tell them, much unlike people, which tends to attract people with particular abilities and disabilities. Bill Gates psuedo cameo in the film is telling - go watch his deposition video and its clear he and Zuckerberg, as portrayed, have much in common (Of course anyone deposed is bound to be cranky, but still).

And more interesting, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellision, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Henry Ford and dozens of others of captains of industry weren't lovable, likable or ethical either early in their careers (if ever), despite how we lionize them later. Films of their early lives would have similarities to The Social Network. Simply put, no one is forced to be a CEO or start a company. Those who do are often fueled by greed, arrogance, pride, insecurity or a need to prove something to someone who probably isn't even paying attention, a point it's clear David Fincher intended to make.

But much like the film Wall Street, which aimed to show the tragedy of the power brokers in finance but instead created a hero for a certain group of people, The Social Network, which was clearly designed as a tragedy, will have the same fate. Lots of young people will now see having a business card with "I'm CEO, bitch" as a goal worthy of spending their lives chasing, missing how much personal carnage this psychology created for this particular CEO and everyone around him.

Quote of the day

Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson." Neither Ingrid Bergman nor anyone else in "Casablanca" says "Play it again, Sam"; Leo Durocher did not say "Nice guys finish last"; Vince Lombardi did say "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" quite often, but he got the line from someone else. Patrick Henry almost certainly did not say "Give me liberty, or give me death!"; William Tecumseh Sherman never wrote the words "War is hell"; and there is no evidence that Horace Greeley said "Go west, young man."

And it's so good it deserves part 2:

Marie Antoinette did not say "Let them eat cake"; Hermann Göring did not say "When I hear the word 'culture,' I reach for my gun"; and Muhammad Ali did not say "No Vietcong ever called me nigger." Gordon Gekko, the character played by Michael Douglas in "Wall Street," does not say "Greed is good"; James Cagney never says "You dirty rat" in any of his films; and no movie actor, including Charles Boyer, ever said "Come with me to the Casbah." Many of the phrases for which Winston Churchill is famous he adapted from the phrases of other people, and when Yogi Berra said "I didn't really say everything I said" he was correct.

From Notable Quotables by Louis Menand, in the New Yorker