New Perspectives On Web Design

By Christopher Murphy CHAPTER 13

The MYThS of innovaTion
Berkun’s The Myths of Innovation from 2007 demystifies the myths often
conjured up to explain innovation. As Berkun puts it, “Ideas never stand
alone”; the ideas we remember are always the product of other ideas and
inventions. Break any idea down (let’s say, Twitter and Instagram) and
you’ll find other ideas (SMS text messaging and Polaroid photography,
respectively). The accepted wisdom that these ideas are the result of divine
inspiration, appearing fully formed from nowhere, is a million miles from
reality. In fact, they’re the result of inquisitive minds that see new connec-
tions or see old patterns repeating themselves in new ways.
Berkun uses the idea of a jigsaw to explain the moment of epiphany,
which, rather than a result of divine intervention, is really the moment at
which you see all the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place clearly. As he puts it:

One way to think about epiphany is to imagine working on a jigsaw puzzle.

When you put the last piece into place, is there anything special about that

last piece...? The only reason that last piece is significant is because of the other

pieces you already put into place. If you jumbled up the pieces a second time, any

one of them could turn out to be the last, magical piece.

So, where do the pieces of the jigsaw come from?
In short, you develop some of the pieces of the jigsaw yourself (through
experimentation and prototyping), but other critical pieces of the jigsaw
are already out there. You learn to see those other pieces of the jigsaw by
reading widely, exploring unfamiliar and challenging themes, and main-
taining a curious mind. Constantly interrogating the world, offline and
online, is critical. The jigsaw pieces are everywhere, they’re all around you;
you just need to learn to see them.

Let’s take a jigsaw and break it apart.