Scott Berkun Quotes

Most people doubt online meeting scan work, but they somehow overlook that most in person meetings don't work either.

It’s not the fear of writing that blocks people, it’s fear of not writing well; something quite different.

My intent is simply to know my material so well that I'm very comfortable with it. Confidence, not perfection, is the goal.

Staying curious and open is what makes growth possible, and it requires practice to maintain that mindset. To keep learning, we have to avoid the temptation to slide into narrow, safe views of what we do.

I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be useful, I want to be good, and I want to sound like myself. Trying to be perfect gets in the way of all three.

Part of the challenge of innovation is coming up with the problem to solve, not just its solution.

Big thoughts are fun to romanticize, but it's many small insights coming together that bring big ideas into the world.

Commit yourself to taking enough risks that you will fail some of the time. If you're not failing, we're not doing something sufficiently difficult or creative.

Innovation is significant positive change.

Good public speaking is based on good private thinking

The bottleneck is never code or creativity; it's lack of clarity.

Experiment is the expected failure to deliberately learn something.

People tell me this is obvious. But it's ok to be obvious. Knowing and doing are different. Many people know many obvious things they completely fail to do, despite their knowledge.

When I'm the speaker, I know that special moment [just before speaking] is the only time I will have the entire audience's full attention. Unless an alien spaceship crash-lands on stage midway through the talk, the silence before I begin is the most powerful moment I have. What defines how well I'll do starts with how I use the power of that moment.

The temptation many creative people I know have is to strive for popularity. To make, do, and say things that other people like in the hopes of pleasing them. This motivation is nice. And sometimes the end result is good. But often what happens in trying so hard to please other people, especially many other people, the result is mediocre.

Innovative ideas are rarely rejected on their merits; they’re rejected because of how they make people feel. If you forget people’s concerns and feelings when you present an innovation, or neglect to understand their perspectives in your design, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

History can't give attention to what's been lost, hidden, or deliberately buried; it is mostly a telling of success, not the partial failures that enabled success.