Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation

by Steven Johnson

The academic literature on innovation and creativity is rich with subtle distinctions between innovations and inventions, between different modes of creativity: artistic, scientific, technological. I have deliberately chosen the broadest possible phrasing—good ideas—to suggest the cross-disciplinary vantage point I am trying to occupy. The good ideas in this survey range from software platforms to musical genres to scientific paradigms to new models for government. My premise is that there is as much value to be found in seeking the common properties across all these varied forms of innovation and creativity as there is value to be found in documenting the differences between them. The poet and the engineer (and the coral reef) may seem a million miles apart in their particular forms of expertise, but when they bring good ideas into the world, similar patterns of development and collaboration shape that process.