A thousand curses on Google!

So, I have roughly a week to go through the copy-edit of my book and slip in any updates since I filed the manuscript in January. And I find I have to mention Google’s broadband plans in the chapter on networks. And the Nexus One. Have to mention Buzz in the chapter on the other networks – the social kind. Touch on the Google-China spat in the chapter on ethics. Fit in the Apps marketplace in the chapter on clouds.

Slow down, will you, Google?

Actually for a book on innovation, Google is a fire hose. It is not one of the anchor 8 Polymath case studies in the book, but its presence is felt in many, many parts of the book.

Of course, it’s not just Google. Have to work in the Apple iPad in the chapter on interfaces, the Bloom Box in the chapter on sustainability, Obama’s health plan ups and downs in the chapter on singularity, the Altimeter SCRM study into the chapter on social networks. And a couple of mergers, a couple of executive moves, a couple of lawsuits that affect my interviewees in various chapters.

As a wag told me “Next time write on a more static topic – like dead people!”

I did not have the heart to tell him the book does have several dead people. And I would not let them rest in peace. In the climax chapter I bring 10 Polymaths from history – Da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Plato and others – back to life.  They inspire and lead a conference on innovation.

I just hope these reincarnates don’t start learning to drive and start having wild parties. I have no interest in updating the book further with any such escapades.  And frankly, every passing week just gives Google a chance to grab even more ink in the book.

Time to tie the bow. 

As it stands now, the book ends with Michelangelo proposing a toast to the uomo universale, the Italian term for Polymath…

BTW – excerpts from book are here and here. More to come.