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.