the brook

Once you get used to reading 18th century English, this is an absolutely delightful, interesting and thought provoking book, well deserving of its place at the top of the Harvard classics bookshelf.

The two facts I knew for certain about Benjamin Franklin before I read the book were that he was a founding father of the USA, and he was a pioneer in the field of electricity. The former fact isn’t even a subject in the book, which ends in 1757, and the latter is mentioned only in passing. And yet anyone reading the book is sure to come out thinking that Franklin was one of the most interesting people who ever lived.

His accomplishments in life were astonishing. He got his start in life in the printing business, and eventually started the second newspaper in America. He was responsible for inventing the concept of a municipal fire department, convincing the public to pay for crime-watch and street-cleaning, conceptualizing and implementing the equivalent of city bonds, founding a university that survives to this day, and leading troops in battle, among other things.

Socrates, who said “the un-examined life is not worth living”, could not have been prouder of this man. It’s fascinating how deeply Franklin examines himself, analyses his smallest failings and endeavors to improve them. He spent months maintaining a diary in which he gave himself black marks every day for offending his high standards of decency, integrity, and hard work. His methods of keeping a habit of daily study of some subject or other throughout his life are very motivating.

The book also gives a wonderful glimpse into early America, way back in time when the country as it is today was still being made. How Boston had paper currency whilst Philadelphia had silver, how business was financed not by banks but people of means, how the British aristocracy coerced ever more taxes from the colony in the name of protection, which ultimately led to the revolution. Most striking of all, though is that this isn’t told from a grand historical perspective, but from the point of view of one man who was involved with all of these dealings personally — a feat which, alas, is almost impossible in today’s world of specialists, where an economist can’t be a general, who can’t be a philosopher, who cannot afford to be a politician.

Came across this series while browsing bookstores in India. Thanks to vacation time, I could polish off the first and second parts in four days, just like old times! The first book is titled “The Immortals of Meluha” and the second is “The Secret of the Nagas”. I can’t remember the last time I’ve finished books any faster. Probably during my undergraduate years.

In this fictional twist on history, there were in 1900 BC two main kingdoms established in the Indian subcontinent — the Suryavanshis in the west, in the region we know as the Indus valley; and the Chandravanshis in the valley of the Ganges in the east. South India was home to a civilization of outcasts — the Nagas. In the Himalayan tribes dwelling near Mansarovar lake is born a man — Shiva — who is destined to become a God, the prophecised “destroyer of evil”. The Suryavanshis, whose kingdom and way of life is under attack from mysterious forces, discover Shiva and look to him to be their savior, even as he remains unsure of how exactly he is to fulfill his destiny.

The action and events of the plot are fast paced, even though the descriptions are somewhat threadbare. However, after the travails of going through never-ending series like the Wheel of Time (I’m still struggling through it), I was rather happy to trade verbosity for a plot that actually moves. The first part of the first book feels a little too predictable but the plot soon develops a number of very interesting twists. Through the two books, the focus moves to the fundamental question Shiva was born to answer — what is meant by “Evil”? It is simple to destroy an object, a person, a civilization or a species, but how does one destroy the abstraction of evil?

The book is most interesting for its parallels to, and interpretation of, Hindu philosophy and lore. The question of ‘what is evil’ of course is one such parallel, but there are plenty of others — the nature of Shiva and his family — wife Parvati and son Ganesha; the caste system; the legend of Kashi. Amish Tripathi has managed to spin a fabulously interesting tale, and I look forward to the third part of the trilogy which is probably coming out sometime next year.

A great book of insights, history and reasoning about the process of innovation. I think Scott Berkun chooses the perfect way to go about describing innovation — debunking the myths and half-truths that have cropped up about it since the term became overly abused in corporate and business communication. The work is far from merely showing the negative though, Berkun shines light on the subject via this process. Debunking the myths is only the first step to get you thinking in the right direction.

There are ten chapters in the book, all of them focused around a specific idea or myth. Many of these ideas are interrelated, however and here are the central ideas that I took from the book.

Innovation is a result of much hard work, not a random epiphany. This is the first chapter but the point is made throughout the book. The ‘epiphany’ to which innovation is often attributed (apple falling on Newton’s head, Archimedes’ eureka moment) is at best the final piece in a large jigsaw puzzle in which assembling the other pieces was hard work, and the puzzle would never be complete without any single missing piece. This goes beyond one person; the book makes a compelling argument that many innovations are the result of the labors of many people who contributed to the field before (standing on the shoulders of giants), as seen so often in science where many revelations were seemingly simultaneously arrived at by people working independently. Moreover, many breakthroughs are often the result of teams rather than individuals.

Seen in the bigger context, innovation follows a densely branched structure rather than a linear path. The histories try to conveniently explain away innovation by means of a simplistic story, but the reality is much more complex. Many innovations happen by accident — Flickr was started originally as an MMORPG before it’s creators realized it would make an amazing photo sharing service by itself. There were many designs for the automobile before Henry Ford’s, running on everything from electricity to steam to gasoline. There is usually a multitude of ideas around a problem that co-exist before one idea wins out and history marks its inventors as innovators. Sometimes, the best ideas don’t win. Adoption of an innovation is subject to cultural, political and economical forces; the QWERTY keyboard is far from the most efficient way to type yet it doesn’t look likely to be replaced with any so-called “better” alternatives.

“Creativity is the child in the park.” One of my favourite quotes from the book, it makes the point that innovation is about experimentation, playfulness, and willingness to examine ideas and throw them away without tiring. It’s important to be broad-minded rather than narrow-minded, to be wiling to adapt and change. One of the hardest-hitting points that Scott Berkun makes is that former innovators are the least likely to recognize innovation in their field even if it’s staring at them in the face, because they believe in their own way so much that they’re blinded to new possibilities. Which is why, time and time again, behemoth-sized companies are regularly beaten by nimbler startups, (think Barnes and Noble vs. Amazon, Nokia vs Apple, Western Union vs Alexander Bell).

The arguments made in the book, though by no means foolproof, are nevertheless compelling, and more importantly, thought provoking. If nothing else, the book gets different circuits buzzing in your brain, and that’s worth every page.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” — Goethe