Myths of innovation

I was looking at some old Van Halen videos on YouTube last night and I came across a 1982 interview with the band's lead singer, David Lee Roth (Diamond Dave). During the interview, he made some very candid and insightful comments about his rise to fame. One that I really liked was this one, on the topic of innovation:

" . . . inspiration doesn't come from nowhere. You don't just lie in a dark, black room and suddenly a burst of light and the hand of the Lord comes out and says, 'Here, have a song.' It doesn't happen like that: you have to steal it from somebody. You change this, you change that. If it was good enough for Beethoven, it's good enough for me."

Nice one Dave! You can watch the interview HERE. (Warning! There is some big hair in this video.)

Scott Berkun, author of The Myths of Innovation adopts a similar attitude in this recent talk he did at Google HQ.



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