Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation Steven Johnson

Where Good Ideas Come From:The Natural History of InnovationSteven JohnsonA review of the book and additional thoughts of Gillian Buonanno

Web/City/Coffeehouse

Get open

The Adjacent PossibleInnovation based on the available parts/knowledgeApollo 13

Parts

The parts must exist first, whether they are mechanical, intellectual, or physical.

Liquid Networks

Must:

Have a huge number of ideas/thoughts at any given time

Be capable of adjusting/assuming new configurations

Spillover

When a common culture is shared by so many individuals, good ideas will flow from mind to mind.

The Slow Hunch

Begins with a vague sense that there is a solution to problem that has not yet been questioned Lingers in the back of the mind for unspecified amount of time Making new connections, filtering through ripples (networks) Thinking of a problem in a different way

The Slow Hunch needs the commonplace book.

A personal book of writings, quotes, translations that are inspiring.Today, we call them bookmarks, RSS feeds, delicious accounts.

Joseph Priestley

Discovered oxygen, carbon monoxide, ammonia, nitrous oxide, carbonated water

A favorite pastime as a boy was to trap spiders in a glass jar. Studied classical languages as a young child: Hebrew, Greek and Latin In preparation for being a minister, he studied French, Italian, German, Chaldean, Syrian & Arabic Mathematics, natural philosophy, logic metaphysics through the works of John Locke, Isaac Watts & Willem Gravesande

Tim Berners-Lee

Names his network the World Wide Web

Child of mathematicians Enquire within cyclopedia While working at CERN laboratory, began organizing the overwhelming amount of information and personnel contact, calling it Enquire. Ten years later, he returns to the project looking for a way to connect documents stored on different computers, using a language called Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML).

SerendipityThe power of accidental connectionYou have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings serendipitously (Barth).

Anchors and unlikely connectionsAnchors are the research, notes, conversations with colleagues

Unlikely connections happen when we take a break, go for a walk, soak in the hot tub, bake cookies

Error

Being right keeps you in place. Being wrong forces you to explore.

Two important scientific errorsJoseph Priestley

Alexander Fleming

Exaptation

Gutenberg

An idea, a technology, an organism, is used to solve an unrelated problem, thus creating a completely new genre or technology.

PlatformsAn environment that encourages hunches to be connected and built upon.

The Fourth Quadrant

Resourceshttp://historyofjournalism.onmason.com/2009/10/13/a-cup-of-news/

http://playfootballright.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8613766.stm

http://www.fairhaven.edu/fh/Special%20Services%20(Pre%20K%20-%208)/Faculty%20Pages/Betty%20Crowley,%20Speech%20and%20Language%20Services/

http://www.computer-wallpaper-backgrounds.com/cool-background-wallpapers/water-ripples-background.php

http://www.foxsaver.com/public/picture/599874888

http://www.moleskinerie.com/2005/12/how_to_start_an.html

http://www.lessignets.com/signetsdiane/calendrier/aout/1.htm

http://www.visualphotos.com/image/2x4394239/spider_web_with_dew_drops_against_blue_sky

Resourceshttp://people.ucalgary.ca/~phichan/gallery/index.html

http://www.mccullagh.org/photo/1ds-6/tryst-coffeehouse

http://blog.solutionexplorers.com/page/2/

http://www.patentplaques.com/blog/?p=524

http://smartlivingcollection.org/2011/01/26/movable-type-press/

http://www.naturealmanac.com/archive/beaver_dams/beaver_dams.html

http://memeburn.com/2010/11/where-good-ideas-come-from/