Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

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Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

4.03 of 5 stars 4.03 · rating details · 2,861 ratings · 337 reviews

One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from?

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Published (first published 2010)

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Sep 29, 2010 Kristine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

I won this book from Goodreads. This is a fascinating book I would recommend to anyone even remotely interested in creativity and the history of the ideas that changed our world and the way we interact with it. He tackles the similarities in how ideas form, from Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection to the internet and twitter. Johnson's writing is tight and engaging--his ideas scream for contemplation and incorporation into one's intellectual life, yet I found it difficult to pull m...more

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Jun 15, 2013 Ramsey Fahs rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Book operates around 5 major concepts:

1. The Adjacent Possible- contrary to popular belief innovation seldom changes the game completely by creating something incredibly advanced. More often, innovation unlocks a realm of the adjacent possible (That which can be achieved given the components that are already in existence). Ex: in the primordial soup of Earth pre-life, amino acids could be formed spontaneously through random collisions of atoms and functional groups. It would've been impossible f...more Book operates around 5 major concepts:

1. The Adjacent Possible- contrary to popular belief innovation seldom changes the game completely by creating something incredibly advanced. More often, innovation unlocks a realm of the adjacent possible (That which can be achieved given the components that are already in existence). Ex: in the primordial soup of Earth pre-life, amino acids could be formed spontaneously through random collisions of atoms and functional groups. It would've been impossible for a functional cell to be formed then because the number of fortuitous collisions would've been staggering. Cells could be formed once their simpler components were present in the environment. Innovation takes simple components and makes slightly more complex products in a continuous cycle.

2. Liquid Networks- Because the adjacent possible is unlocked through random collissions in components, it makes sense that innovation would thrive in so-called "liquid environments" in which component ideas are able to flow freely. Cities are such liquid environments. The internet is the ultimate liquid environment. Offices are trying to become more liquid environments thorugh encouraging collaboration.

3. Slow Hunch- The narrative of the "Eureka moment" is seldom accurate. More often than not innovation occurs once a slow hunch has reached maturity. Slow hunches can reach maturity by colliding with other ideas. hus, keeping one's slow hunches alive is advisable to promote innovation. Keeping a commonplace book is an excellent way to cultivate and keep alive a slow hunch. Innovation is also promoted by cross-polination between different fields. Many famous scientists and thinkers have switched what they are spending their time on every couple of days. This puts the original thought in one's self conscious.

4. Serendipity is obviously important to innovation because with increased serendipity comes increased collisions between slow hunches. Information overflow encourages creativity. The internet promotes the ultimate information overflow.

5. Error- "Being right keeps you in place. Being wrong forces you to explore." Sometimes the noise is the signal, humans have a natural tendency to dismiss error. Our body maintains some error in DNA replication to continue the evolutionary drive (whether this is why evolutionary design or by the inability for a perfect system is unknown).

6. Exaptation- Taking an idea or thing from one field and applying it to another field. Gutenberg with the screw press. In dense urban centers exaptations are more likely. Weak-tie expatation. Utilizing the weak-tie of Connectors to exapt ideas. Apple development cycle is more like a coffehouse than an assembly line; Everyone plans it all together instead of designers followed by other people. In the latter method there is a tendrency for the thing to be whittled down.

7. Platforms - Ecosystem engineers. Generative platforms come in stacks. Platforms encourage and amplify hunches. Twitter's open-source software allows different people to run twitter machines which increases popularity. Hashtags and @ also came of early twitter users because of the platform. API=open platform in software

8. The Fourth Quadrant (non-market, networked) has provided a proportionally high amount of innovation.The problem with Quadrant One(market, networked) is that it encourages us to build artificial walls (patents etc.) around information. When information flows free everyone benefits.
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Apr 21, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ideas

I picked up this book after hearing Steven Johnson's interview on CBC's Spark. His arguments are compelling, and the book is chock full of invention origin stories - a very interesting read!

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Apr 19, 2011 Nicholas M rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fantastic! The single most important book for anyone looking for an accurate and comprehensive description of the creative process that they have heretofore been unable to verbalize. Johnson breaks creativity down to 7 basic underlying principles: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation, and platforms. In doing so, he not only allows readers to become more conscious of the patterns that creativity follows, but he also provides inspiring examples of the...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Chad Warner rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Chad by: .net Magazine

Shelves: business, non-fiction, psychology, self-help

This book shows that “good ideas” (or key innovations) are generally products of prior discoveries, experimentation, and collaboration, not the Eureka moments of isolated geniuses. I found the historical anecdotes interesting and the lessons somewhat insightful, but overall the book wasn’t especially fascinating. I also felt that Johnson’s repeated comparisons of human ingenuity to evolutionary ecology were stretching the metaphor and didn’t contribute to his points. My favorite chapter was The...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the better books on innovation, Steven Johnson makes connections between biological and technological patterns in how to create innovative environments. The illustrations are vivid and memorable, which help me remember the difference components of an innovative ecosystem. This is definitely the kind of book that I like to have on hand and lend to people.
1. Adjacent Possible - Good ideas are built from a collection of existing parts, the following six patterns assemble a wider variety of s...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Kathy Nealen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Johnson discusses how ideas are facilitated by features within the external environment, one's life experiences, including hobbies and other outside interests and activities. The role of errors in generating ideas and insights is also included. He provides many interesting examples, including information about Darwin and the evolution (ha ha) of his ideas.

There is an appendix listing a chronology of key innovations from 1400 - 2000, starting with, oddly enough, double-entry accounting and ending...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Holly Morrow added it · review of another edition

What a fun book! Johnson draws on a mind-boggling array of disciplines (evolutionary biology, computers, medicine, industrial mechanics, literature) to look at which environments best foster innovation – the jumping off point is a coral reef and its ability to generate a complex ecosystem in nutrient-poor waters. Apparently, the thinking behind this book had been brewing as he wrote two previous books (which I’ve not read) about famous inventers – he was interested in showing that groundbreakin...more What a fun book! Johnson draws on a mind-boggling array of disciplines (evolutionary biology, computers, medicine, industrial mechanics, literature) to look at which environments best foster innovation – the jumping off point is a coral reef and its ability to generate a complex ecosystem in nutrient-poor waters. Apparently, the thinking behind this book had been brewing as he wrote two previous books (which I’ve not read) about famous inventers – he was interested in showing that groundbreaking innovations are not simply the product of a genius sitting in isolation and having a eureka moment. Indeed, his whole book stresses that great innovations are generally NOT produced that way – that if you do forensics on most great “discoveries” there is a rich history of proto-discoveries that pre-date them that made them possible, and in this way “good ideas” (his chosen term) are generally works of bricolage and tinkering rather than lightning strikes of revolutionary creative inspiration. To Johnson, most innovation happens not by asking, “what doesn’t exist that should exist?” but rather, “whats a new way to use and combine these existing components?” and is almost inherently a community effort (the part where he lost me was in arguing that patents and commercialization of good ideas impede their creation – history seems to suggest otherwise – but I feel like I might not have fully understood his meaning). The book follows a basic structure: historical narrative about a significant innovation (the who, what, where, how); what broader patterns this example illuminates; and how to engineer environments (whether its your own life, a company, or a society) so that they foster more good ideas. Some of the most important: nurturing “slow hunches” and half-baked ideas; networks that encourage exposure to a broad array of ideas (whether through diverse personal networks, reading a lot, or whatever) that can mate with your half-baked idea; seeking out serendipity; allowing the brain the ability to sift through its databases (he talks about the biomechanics of good ideas and how you need to give your brain the chance to fire randomly – through both sleep and zoning out). Some people will probably find the recommendations useful; for me the book was just fun window-shopping in the mind of someone with a vast amount of knowledge of different fields.(less)

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Feb 18, 2012 Taras rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book can be summarized as - where good ideas die. I expected to book to serve as a guide as how inventions evolved into new inventions. Instead the book turned out to be a cross between something like a business book "how to foster new ideas" and a self-help one "how to be more inventive". The fact that it's written by a yuppie Silicon Valley entrepreneur makes it that much more difficult to stomach - the book raves about twitter as a platform and plugs some data-mining wares the author is...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Ismail Elshareef rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read a lot of business books. Some I pick up on my own and some are given to me by the Chairman of the company I work at. Not all the books I read are good, but those that are usually have one important takeaway that sticks with me.

This book is one of those good ones. So much so that it has inspired me to write this blog post on Edmunds Technology Blog.

It is rife with great takeaways, or as I like to call them, themes. Those "themes" manage to tie together all the other seemingly disparate i...more I read a lot of business books. Some I pick up on my own and some are given to me by the Chairman of the company I work at. Not all the books I read are good, but those that are usually have one important takeaway that sticks with me.

This book is one of those good ones. So much so that it has inspired me to write this blog post on Edmunds Technology Blog.

It is rife with great takeaways, or as I like to call them, themes. Those "themes" manage to tie together all the other seemingly disparate ideas I've come across in my previous readings, especially the ones on culture of organizations, success and data openness.

The main main theme that stood out for me in this book was the concept of the adjacent possible. The is by far the most interesting and revealing concept I've come across in a while. Essentially, it is a "shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself."

The author goes on to say that, "what the adjacent possible tells us is that at any moment the world is capable of extraordinary change, but only certain changes can happen." That brings to mind the theme of Openness discussed in Charlene Li's Open Leadership which to me seems to be an application of the adjacent possible. Our collective emotional and mental societal state had made it possible for businesses to be open and transparent. Openness in business has just recently entered the realm of the adjacent possible and the reason why is because the ingredients to make it successful are now mature and ready.

The other important theme discussed in the book is the concept of the liquid networks. The concept is all about feng shui for innovation. Creating the right fluidity between minds and spaces is an art and those who master it are likely to be more innovative than those that don't. The author uses MIT's building 20 and Microsoft's building 99 as examples of successful liquid networks.

In addition to these two fascinating and important concepts, the book discusses an array of other concepts that have proven to be a source of innovation. A great read for anyone interested in the subject.(less)

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May 18, 2011 Arjen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-dutch, non-fiction, science

Hmm, here we go again. Another 'popular / best selling' author with a 'great' book full of 'new' insights.

Johnson describes where good ideas come from (hence the title) by breaking it down into 7 patterns: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation, platforms. Each chapter describes a pattern by starting out with an anecdote of some inventor x in city y in year z. Then the pattern is defined / described and finally a bit elaborated upon with possibly m...more Hmm, here we go again. Another 'popular / best selling' author with a 'great' book full of 'new' insights.

Johnson describes where good ideas come from (hence the title) by breaking it down into 7 patterns: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation, platforms. Each chapter describes a pattern by starting out with an anecdote of some inventor x in city y in year z. Then the pattern is defined / described and finally a bit elaborated upon with possibly more anecdotes. It's nice to read an anecdote now and then but after three chapters it gets really annoying. And whereas the idea of breaking down 'idea generation' into seven patterns is a nice, and the patterns in itself are interesting enough subjects, the way Johnson treats the patterns and elaborates on the patterns is really disappointing. There is no real deep original insight or new thought from the side of the author.

And where the first three chapter could keep my attention and approval, from the fourth chapter (serendipity) Johnson really misses the point, in my opinion. He describes serendipity well enough but in his apologia of the critique that the Internet prevents serendipity, he is blabbering sheer nonsense. He states that since we can use Google and wikipedia, we can much easier deepen and extent our serendipitous encounters and hunches. But that is a posteriori, the serendipitous event has already taken place when I start searching Google for 'The process church of holy judgement' after seeing, the never heard of before Sabbath Assembly, opening up for Earth, realising they base their music on the same cult from the sixties where Cleveland's Integrity built their 'Church of holy terror' thinking on.

In the final chapters there is some inexplicable flirting with Darwinian evolutionary ideas which are interesting in themselves but I didn't really see the analogy or their role as argument in the point he is trying to make.

The final, conclusive chapter is actually quite nice but nothing more than paraphrasing Kevin Kelly's ideas from 'New rules for a new economy'.

I was doubting between 2 and 3 stars but since I did enjoy most of the read I give it 3 stars. On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend this book, go read Kevin Kelly instead.

UPDATE: I just subtracted one star. I forgot to mention that it increasingly annoys me that these so called 'popular science' books tend to have pages and pages of useless appendices, bibliographies, indices etc. All are defendable in some way but to me it seems that they are just there to make the book look thicker or more voluminous. This book for example has about 40 pages (which is almost 20% of the number of pages of the actual story) with a 'Chronology of key innovations 1400-2000' ???????. There is absolutely no single bit of new information in there. What's next? Including a list of most used words in the book? 'Translation of the most important concepts into three forgotten languages'? Please include a link to a web page or something. Besides that the total number of pages is 326 of which about 245 are story.(less)

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Apr 21, 2011 Paul Signorelli rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: creativity, innovation

Steven Johnson's "Where Good Ideas Come From" is a rich addition to the literature on creativity, innovation, and collaboration, and a tremendous resource for anyone needing a reminder that little is created in a vacuum. While much of the book is rooted in examples of scientific exploration, discovery, and innovation, its scope encompasses everything from Darwin's work with coral reefs to literary historian Franco Moretti's writings on the evolution of the novel. He draws on the work of Jane Jac...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think the author cuts through the crap regarding where inspiration comes from and produces some reasonable trends that explain where a lot of good ideas come from for instance:

The adjacent possible - Often many good but almost identical ideas come out at the same time. Innovation usually happens in an area not too different from where the status quo is, so a requisite innovation allows many new ideas to flower which several people may work on at once.

The author also gives a compelling, data-ba...more

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Mar 16, 2011 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Analogies to the natural world aside, some interesting insight actionable advice for fostering innovation

Somewhat entertaining. An attempt to abstract the conditions in which innovation thrives, along the way making many analogies to nature (e.g. sex is good for innovation because it brings disparate 'ideas' together and allows for a small amount of error).

But there are the seeds of good recommendations here, tied to each of the environmental factors he identifies that encourage innovation:

The...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Leslie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Points that I liked:
* The environment effects the amount of innovation
* Cities geometrically increase the amount of innovation
* It takes 20 years to mainstream innovations: The 10/10 Rule
* The adjacent possible: the next level of "new" based on what is available now.
* "The multiple": multiple independent scientists or inventors simultaneously develop the same brilliant idea.
* When the time is ripe, a new idea will happen
* Liquid networks: not too rigid, not too chaotic/gaseous.
* A good...more

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Dec 17, 2010 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: business-and-society

I first became acquainted with Where Good Ideas Come From through Steven Johnson's TED talk, which I highly recommend if you've got a spare 17 minutes. In that talk -- and the book -- Johnson argues that most people are wrong when they imagine where new, innovative ideas come from. Many people have in their mind a lone scientist working in his lab, suddenly arriving at a "Eureka" moment, perhaps with a proverbial light bulb over their head. It's the apple falling on Isaac Newton, or Darwin devel...more I first became acquainted with Where Good Ideas Come From through Steven Johnson's TED talk, which I highly recommend if you've got a spare 17 minutes. In that talk -- and the book -- Johnson argues that most people are wrong when they imagine where new, innovative ideas come from. Many people have in their mind a lone scientist working in his lab, suddenly arriving at a "Eureka" moment, perhaps with a proverbial light bulb over their head. It's the apple falling on Isaac Newton, or Darwin developing the idea of the survival of the fittest while reading Malthus.

The only problem is that it's wrong.

Through this book, Johnson points out that most innovative ideas come not from the brilliant lightbulb moment of a lone genius but rather through slow hunches cultivated for months, years, or decades over liquid networks. One of the reasons why big cities are so much more innovative than small towns is that you have more diversity, more "spillover" of ideas, and more chance for the ideas to mingle around together. Ideas don't appear whole-cloth, but often develop slowly, as the scientist or inventor keeps them on the back burner while pursuing other interests. One day, perhaps, he encounters someone else with another "slow hunch," and they click and complete each other. Johnson points to other features that tend to nurture innovation, like making lots of mistakes and stealing ideas from other domains (the Gutenberg printing press relied on Rhineland wine-press technology).

If you like, you can read through this book as a guide to making your own life or your company more innovative. There are even a few guidelines: take lots of walks (to expose yourself to different stimuli), write everything down, expose yourself to different ideas and disciplines as much as you can, having diverse hobbies, let other people build upon your ideas. But even if you do none of these things, Where Good Ideas Come From is a fascinating look at how we got where we are, and is well worth the read.(less)

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Oct 17, 2010 Book Calendar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Where Good Ideas Come From The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson

This book is a history of how good ideas and inventions come into being. It is very scientific and technically oriented focusing on Charles Darwin, James D. Watson, Willis Haviland Carrier, Enrico Fermi, and other people with breakthrough ideas. At the same time, it uses historical examples to extrapolate ways that individuals will likely become more innovative.

Some of the ideas behind the book are not intuitive. For e...more Where Good Ideas Come From The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson

This book is a history of how good ideas and inventions come into being. It is very scientific and technically oriented focusing on Charles Darwin, James D. Watson, Willis Haviland Carrier, Enrico Fermi, and other people with breakthrough ideas. At the same time, it uses historical examples to extrapolate ways that individuals will likely become more innovative.

Some of the ideas behind the book are not intuitive. For example, Tim Berner's Lee development of the world wide web occurred over a long time period without any single eureka moment. Many ideas come from slow continuous development.

Steven Johnson describes many ways to increase individual innovation; keep a diary, browse libraries, bookstores, and the internet, have workspaces which mix order and disorder, keep a wide variety of hobbies, and go to places where ideas flow freely like cafes and innovative spaces.

The author uses lots of stories and examples to illustrate his points. He even has a timeline of innovation in the appendix of this book. The Notes and Further Reading section cites numerous authors like Clay Shirky, Charles Darwin, Jaron Lanier, Malcolm Gladwell, Edward O. Wilson, and Lawrence Lessig. This book will have an especially strong appeal to people interested in computers and new media.

The book is not just about individual ways that people can innovate. It also describes some causes of innovation like serendipity, exaptation, and error. In addition it goes beyond the individual to include examples of environmental factors. For example, cities condense the amount of people freeing people to try new things, and platforms like Twitter increase the ability to communicate new ideas.

I found the book to be very well organized. This made it easy to think about what I was reading. In addition to the appendix which had the Chronology of Key Innovations 1400 to 2000 and the Notes and Further Reading, there was a bibliography and index. This is a very well put together book. Amanda Dewey is listed as the designer for the book. If you look on the internet, she has designed quite a few bestsellers(less)

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Apr 18, 2012 Candice Carpenter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, science, creativity

Within the first 20 pages, I was hooked with this book. For anyone with an entrepreneurial bent or fiendish desire to understand the workings of innovation and creativity, this is the book for you. Johnson elegantly and eloquently debunks the so-called myth of the lone genius innovating in a vacuum. Instead, he asserts that several underlying principles --of serendipity, error, liquid networks, and adjacent possibilities--help to propel new inventions. Some of the inspirational thoughts that cam...more

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Jan 24, 2012 Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: understanding-things, read_2012

This book is really more like a 3.5 star book, but I can't do that on here and I do really like Steven Johnson's writing in general (been in a fan back into the early FEED days). I also should admit that part of the reason for that half-star demotion might be that I listened to this as an audiobook. The issue was not the narrator or anything you would typically expect, but rather a simple matter of making it difficult (I was listening to it driving to and from work) to stop and ponder or jot dow...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Courtney Johnston rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-about-books, borrowed

I tend to avoid reading this kind of book. The Cluetrain Manifesto, The Tipping Point, Freakonomics, The Black Swan. They all hit the web, and they all pass me by in a largely undifferentiated wash of bold typography, sentence-length sub-titles and (too) easily summarised central points.

I'm not sure now why I ordered 'Where good ideas come from' at the library, but having done so, I dutifully picked it up and settled in to read it over the long weekend. The double line spacing immediately gave m...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science

I'm giving this five stars ("it was amazing"), even though my excitement about it petered out by the end. I was compelled to finish it in a matter of 26 hours, so I guess that means something. I'd been looking for a book that described, and well as explained, insight--that AHA! feeling, where you realize you've just figured out something new. That feeling is my favorite part of my job, and I'd like to increase its frequency. To that end, this book started out very helpful but got less so as I re...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Annemieke Windt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Six years ago I read Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You and found it hugely intelligent and entertaining. Now I didn't remember the name when I started reading Where Good Ideas Come From. The book fits a pattern of reading that includes The Element, Flow and The Four Hour Working Week. Books about new and creative ways of doing things.

Johnson makes a case for open structures and cross fertilization of disciplines to come to new things. And by doing that people keep good company: Dar...more

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Sep 22, 2010 Nathan Forget added it · review of another edition

I first came across Steven Johnson five or six years ago, via Everything Bad is Good for You. At the time, I was considering switching careers—I wanted to make videogames—so Everything Bad resonated very personally with me. I also loved the straightforward writing and the cross-disciplinary ideas in the book, which led me to read several more of Johnson’s books: The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air. Both of those books lived up to my high expectations, so I have been eagerly awaiting the next...more I first came across Steven Johnson five or six years ago, via Everything Bad is Good for You. At the time, I was considering switching careers—I wanted to make videogames—so Everything Bad resonated very personally with me. I also loved the straightforward writing and the cross-disciplinary ideas in the book, which led me to read several more of Johnson’s books: The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air. Both of those books lived up to my high expectations, so I have been eagerly awaiting the next Steven Johnson book for some time now.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation is Johnson’s examination of great ideas—which he broadly defines to include human inventions and natural inventions—how they originate and how we can generate more of them.

The book begins with Charles Darwin studying a coral reef. Johnson describes the reef as an engine of innovation. He then goes on to describe two other major engines of innovation: cities and the Web. All three of these examples (and others) recur throughout the book. Johnson then lays out the basic structure of the book: seven patterns govern the invention and adoption of good ideas. The book devotes a single chapter to each of the patterns. Within each chapter, Johnson applies the pattern to all kinds of ideas from the tiny coral polyps up to the global Web.

Each of the seven patterns is highlighted by entertaining anecdotes from science or history. These anecdotes are well selected and well told—Johnson is an excellent storyteller—and they do a good job of explaining material that could otherwise be very abstract. I enjoyed the style—jumping from topic to topic—even more than the in-depth look at a single man presented in Ghost Map or Invention of Air. Because Johnson has such a broad base of knowledge, he is at his best when sampling the most interesting bits from a full range of scientific disciplines and historical periods.

Each chapter also contains prescriptions for how the chapter’s pattern can be applied to a business, an individual, or a nation. Because of these direct applications, Good Ideas often reads like a cross between a popular science book and a business book. The combination works well, and Good Ideas will likely stimulate its readers to some good ideas of their own.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for ways to stimulate more good ideas in their business or in their personal life, or to anyone who enjoys tales of invention and entertaining science anecdotes.(less)

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Jan 22, 2011 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Saw Steve Johnson speak at the Boston Book Festival in 2010, so I got the book out of the library. Interesting discussion of how "good ideas" develop:
-- the adjacent possible. sorta the next step from where the idea is now. Innovative environments help their inhabitants explore the adjacent possible, because they expose a wide and diverse sample of spare parts and they encourage novel ways of recombining those parts. Get exposed to as many ideas as you can and be rewarded for experimenting.
-- l...more Saw Steve Johnson speak at the Boston Book Festival in 2010, so I got the book out of the library. Interesting discussion of how "good ideas" develop:
-- the adjacent possible. sorta the next step from where the idea is now. Innovative environments help their inhabitants explore the adjacent possible, because they expose a wide and diverse sample of spare parts and they encourage novel ways of recombining those parts. Get exposed to as many ideas as you can and be rewarded for experimenting.
-- liquid networks. High-density liquid networks make it easier for innovation to happen, but they also serve the essential function of storing those innovations. Think N. Italian cities during the Renaissance. Artistic and scientific flowering, combined with innovations in banking, accounting, and insurance. This is not about a global or hive mind though. It is not the wisdom of the crowd, but the wisdom of someone in the crowd. Individuals get smarter because they are connected to the network.
-- the slow hunch. The challenge of the slow hunch is preserving the hunch in your own memory -- write it down. Use of the commonplace book. The tradition of the commonplace book contains a central tension between order and chaos, between the desire for methodical arrangement, and the desire for surprising new links of association. Moves on to a discussion of how Berners-Lee developed the idea of the World Wide Web, starting with a childhood exposure to a kind of encyclopedia in England, Enquire Within Upon Everything.
-- serendipity. The brain's "chaos" mode is where the brain assimilates new information -- a kind of background dreaming. Going for a walk or taking a bath or a shower often brings on this state.
Private serendipity can be cultivated by technology -- DEVONthink for Macs.
If you want to build a daily reading list of eclectic and diverse perspectives, you can stitch one together in your RSS reader or your bookmarks bar. Just as important, you can use the Web to fill out the context when you do stumble across some interesting new topic.
If the commonplace book tradition tells us that the best way to nurture hunches is to write everything down, the serendipity engine of the Web suggests a parallel directive: look everything up.
Make the ideas public, and have them stored somewhere they can be accessed and discovered again.
-- error. A paradoxical truth about good ideas. They are more likely to emerge in environments that contain a certain amount of noise and error. A good idea has to be correct on some basic level . . . but noise-free environments end up being too sterile and predictable in their output. The best innovation labs are always a little contaminated.
-- exaptation. a process in which a feature acquires a function that was not acquired through natural selection.
In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler argued that "all decision events in the history of scientific thought can be described in terms of mental cross-fertilization between different disciplines." Concepts from one domain migrate to another as a kind of structuring metaphor, thereby unlocking some secret door that had long been hidden from view.
Shared environments, such as coffeehouses, facilitate exchanges. It's not encouragement that is needed so much as collisions that happen when different fields of expertise converge in some shared physical or intellectual space.
The influence of AM radio on Brian Eno and the album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, an utterly original mix of African rhythm sections and oddball acoustic instruments. . .instead of traditional singing, Bryne and Eno built the songs around the layered, looped ensemble of spoken words that Eno had grabbed from the airwaves. It was a case study in creative exaptation. Several yrs later, Public Enemy recorded It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back -- deliberately mimicking the Eno and Bryne album/approach. Public Enemy's album went on to become one of the most sonically influential records of its decade, reverberating through the wider culture in everything from cell phone jingles to billboard chart-toppers to avant-garde experimentation.
"Weak ties", wide diverse networks. The value of the weak tie lies not just in the speed with which it transmits information across a network; it also promotes the exaptation of those ideas. Gutenberg trained as a metallurgist, but also had weak ties to vintners.
Hobbies. Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow [John -- the cholera outbreak in London], and Darwin all possess common intellectual qualities, but they also have a lot of hobbies. "It's not so much a question of thinking outside the box, as it is allowing the mind to move through multiple boxes. That movement from box to box forces the mind to approach intellectual roadblocks from new angles, or to borrow tools from one discipline to solve problems in another."
-- platforms. (less)

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Oct 31, 2010 Parker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Regardless of its origin, sometimes a good idea forms the entire basis of a non-fiction book. Often this idea is capable of being summed up in a single pithy sentence which serves as the title--maybe "The Tipping Point," or "The Long Tail,"--and after the concept is explained in the first few paragraphs, chapters full of anecdotes flesh out the work to book length, business publications praise it, and the author can command some serious speaking fees at conferences and corporate events.

Where Goo...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Jaylia3 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An inspiring, couldn’t-put-it-down book about how to nurture insights and creativity.

Every year the Website Edge poses a question to thinkers in a variety of fields. The 2011 question submitted by Steven Pinker with some input from Daniel Kahneman is “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkits?” See http://edge.org/q2011/q11_index.html , to see the responses. And if you are interested in acquiring scientific concepts to improve your thinking, read Steven Johnson’s Wher...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Leah Kaminsky rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book (though I'll admit I'm somewhat of a sucker for the well-written, easily accessible non-fiction book about contemporary ideas). Each chapter raises another interesting point and provides plenty of material to mull over. I especially enjoyed the idea of the adjacent possible, both as it applies to my own creative work and as it applies to ideas in a society as a whole. The theses posited here seem especially relevant in the current information environment, for which we require n...more

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Dec 09, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jan-feb-2011

Applauded as "a voyage of discovery" by the Dallas Morning News and "a magical mystery tour" by the Oregonian, Good Ideas is an in-depth exploration of creativity that mines both the human and natural worlds for insights and patterns in an attempt to understand what stirs the human mind. The critics were generally pleased with Johnson's nimble writing and illuminating conclusions, but a few pointed out some problems in execution -- namely, the copious anecdotes he uses to support his arguments....more

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Mar 30, 2013 Sundar Thyagarajan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Overall an excellent book to read if you are interested in history and innovation.

It took me a few pages to understand the theme starting from Darwin's Paradox. The key take-aways from the author for me are:

1. Adjacent Possible
2. Liquid Networks
3. Serendipity
4. Exaptation
5. Errors

I was clearly able to see the links and the context of the book. Innovations did not happen in vacuum. They happened when like minded individuals met and threw some ideas together. The discussion on the invention of GPS...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this non-fiction book because to me, ideas and innovation are one of the spices of life. The books is structured around historical breakthroughs in ideas, going back and forth between modern and historical breakthroughs, and spends plenty of time on historical thinkers, especially Charles Darwin and other British enlightenment writers.
I enjoyed the book because the author tackles the book using different paradigms, conditions and patterns associated with innovation such as the "adjacent...more

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About Steven Johnson

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Steven Johnson is the author of the bestsellers Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, Everything Bad Is Good For You, and Mind Wide Open, as well as Emergence and Interface Culture. He is the founder of a variety of influential websites—most recently, outside.in—and writes for Time, Wi...more

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Books by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

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“Chance favors the connected mind.” — 18 people liked it

“Bill Gates (and his successor at Microsoft, Ray Ozzie) are famous for taking annual reading vacations. During the year they deliberately cultivate a stack of reading material—much of it unrelated to their day-to-day focus at Microsoft—and then they take off for a week or two and do a deep dive into the words they’ve stockpiled. By compressing their intake into a matter of days, they give new ideas additional opportunities to network among themselves, for the simple reason that it’s easier to remember something that you read yesterday than it is to remember something you read six months ago.” — 12 people liked it

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