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Category: Essays

Why give a book away for free?

Posted on November 7, 2011March 21, 2013 in Essays, Mindfire, Writing Wellby Scott Berkun

Last week I decided to give away my new book, Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds, for free from…

Good, evil and technology: a fun philosophical inquiry

Posted on August 26, 2009March 6, 2021 in Essays, ethics, Innovationby Scott Berkun

Flipping through old essays I found this one from 2005 – it’s one my favorite but most overlooked essays.…

Keep me honest

Posted on August 5, 2009 in Essaysby Scott Berkun

The Conference Board Review, a magazine by the folks who create the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index, have re-published a…

New essay: How to be a free thinker

Posted on January 26, 2009 in Creative Thinking, Essays, Philosophyby Scott Berkun

Are you free? I know I’m not. That’s why I write essays about being free, to freely show how…

More on learning from mistakes

Posted on August 25, 2008 in Essays, mailbagby Scott Berkun

Some recent e-mail about my essay on how to learn from mistakes. Brian wrote: I enjoyed reading your article…

New essay: how to innovate right now

Posted on March 17, 2008 in Essays, Innovation, Myths of Innovationby Scott Berkun

One question I hear often is “what can I do right now?”. Well, it turns out there are lots…

New essay: how to be a genius

Posted on December 10, 2007 in Creative Thinking, Essaysby Scott Berkun

Genius is one of those tricky words that gets used often, without anyone knowing quite what it means. Well,…

New essay: Creative thinking hacks

Posted on August 7, 2007 in Creative Thinking, Essaysby Scott Berkun

Here’s a short, fun, hack-centric essay on creative thinking. It’s loosely based on the course I taught recently at…

Site slow – essay on bullshit hit digg top 10

Posted on August 2, 2007 in Essaysby Scott Berkun

In case you haven’t noticed, my essay how to detect bullshit hit the top 10 on digg today, and…

Attention and Sex: 5 minute video

Posted on June 6, 2007September 2, 2014 in Essays, Philosophyby Scott Berkun

At the last Seattle Ignite event, I did this talk, based on this essay, about the changing nature of…

Essay #55 – How to stay motivated

Posted on May 23, 2007 in Essaysby Scott Berkun

Anyone who does anything year after year has the same challenge: keeping up intensity when the energy, and novelty,…

I will write you an essay – for free!

Posted on March 19, 2007 in Essays, Writing Wellby Scott Berkun

Confession: I am in serious essay debt and I need your help to get out. The story: I made…

Why smart people defend bad ideas: the mailbag

Posted on December 5, 2006 in Essays, humorby Scott Berkun

To my delight, every now and then the fine folks at slashdot or lifehacker mention an essay of mine,…

Essay: Writing hacks (hacks on writing), Part 1

Posted on August 29, 2006 in Essays, Writing Wellby Scott Berkun

The series of O’Reilly hacks books is tons of fun. Despite how you don’t want to hear about hacks…

Essay: How to detect bullshit

Posted on August 14, 2006 in Essays, Management, Philosophyby Scott Berkun

We all like to think we’re good at spotting BS, but how is it done? and why do people…

Essay: Advice for new managers, part two

Posted on May 30, 2006 in Essays, Managementby Scott Berkun

In part one, I hit on the topics new managers need to know before they shoot themselves, or others,…

Essay: Attention and sex

Posted on March 21, 2006 in Essaysby Scott Berkun

At e-tech 2006 the theme was the attention economy – but the conversation was mostly technocentric despite attention being…

Essay: advice for new managers, part 1

Posted on January 25, 2006 in Essaysby Scott Berkun

Someone on the ask Berkun forum requested an essay for new managers. It’s a huge topic – there are…

Best of Berkun

Posted on January 25, 2006February 24, 2018 in Essays, Writing Wellby Scott Berkun

Essay #50 will be published today – Its been 6 years of writing these things, first for MSDN, then…

Essay: How to make a difference

Posted on December 13, 2005 in Essaysby Scott Berkun

What does it mean to make a difference these days? How do you measure you’re own value in the…

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Scott Berkun is the author of nine popular books on creativity, design, leadership and public speaking. You can hire him to speak or follow him on LinkedIn and Facebook.

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Why Design Is Hard

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How Design Makes The World

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The Dance of the Possible

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The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com & the Future of Work

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Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds

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The Myths of Innovation

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About Scott

Scott Berkun is the author of eight popular books on creativity, leadership, philosophy and speaking (more about Scott's background).

You can hire him to speak, ask him a question or follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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