 |
Product Description
One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from?With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the insight of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.
Beginning with Charles Darwin's first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines.
Most exhilarating is Johnson's conclusion that with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. Where Good Ideas Come From is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow's great ideas.
Similar Products
Customer Reviews
2010-10-14
By Jim Owen (Seattle, WA USA)
I have read all of Steven Johnson's books, some more than once. He is one of only 3-4 authoers whose books I watch for and anticipate before their publication, so I was eager to pick up his latest, and not only did it not disappoint, it may be his most thought-provoking yet.
Those of you who have read any of his other books, "The Invention of Air", "Mind Wide Open" or "The Ghost Map" will instantly recignize his lucid, well-researched yet casual tone, and in many ways he is building upon ideas brought forth in those earlier works, consolidating them and putting them together to form new ideas, an endeavor which ironically is one of the very concepts he discusses here.
A better, though less eye-catching title would have been "How Good Ideas Come About". The book is not so much about where, as about what are the conditions most ideal for them. He makes some very interesting and convincing analogies between the natural world and human culture, and bouncing back and forth effortlessly between the two realms is very fresh and compelling.
But even more than his earlier books, the ride along the way is extremely enjoyable. Fans of Ghost Map and Invention of Air will revel in the sheer quantity of "Wow, I never knew that" moments. But this book differs in approach: rather than delve deeply into one or two individual fascinating historical figures and extrapolating conclusions about human culture at large from it, this book starts from the cultural concept (the generation of innovative ideas) and surveys many historical examples to make his points. Each of these examples is fascinating enough to warrant a book all on their own!
I have come away from this book totally affirmed for my penchant for working on 6 projects at once, and for "spacing out". And I've been energized and inspired. Thanks Mr. Johnson!
2010-10-12
By A. Mounsear-wilson (PE, RSA)
Another title I'd love to read but can't as I'm in africa, one of the main reasons I'm guessing a lot of Africans get the Kindle is access to new titles quicker (and at a considerable saving) but this turns out to be a false hope as publishers and amazon block the flow of information to the dark continent. A button to remind me when a title is available in my area would exonerate amazon and make me much poorer. Break down the boarders. Please.
2010-10-07
By Harry Tucker (New York and all over)
In my years as a Wall Street strategy advisor and as a life-long student of that which propels us towards our greatest potential, I am fascinated by an interesting structural tension when it comes to personal and professional excellence.
We have at our finger tips, some of the greatest knowledge, tools and processes that can help propel people and organizations towards excellence and yet despite this vast wealth of information, many people (and the organizations they are associated with) struggle.
After exploring many theories over the years, I think I just realized why this is the case and I am staggered by the implications.
I have just finished reading "Where Good Ideas Come From" by Steven Johnson (author of "Everything Good is Bad For You" and "The Invention of Air") and found the ideas contained within to be of staggering profundity.
A Different View on Creativity
With no offence intended towards well-intentioned individuals within organizations who come up with interesting ways to help us be more creative, I have often struggled with the value of some of the ideas they have come up with. Some examples come to mind, including the time I flew across the country for a mandatory, all-hands meeting where we played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey or another time when I travelled across the country for a mandatory meeting where the primary thing that was accomplished was a competition to see who could build a toy helicopter out of Lego Blocks the fastest.
When I asked people why we were doing these things, I was informed that it was to help us learn to be more creative. I learned something alright but it was not what they hoped I had learned. By the way, I won the helicopter competition, so there are no sour grapes here. :-)
As I read Steven Johnson's book, I realized why we struggle with how to be more creative.
It's because we spend too much time trying to experience an extrinsic-centric learning event when we should be refining the foundational components of what makes a human being a source of unlimited creativity.
As I read his book, I realized why we are often more hit-than-miss when it comes to increasing our potential for creativity. His book also helped me understand why our creativity sometimes grows in leaps and bounds while at other times, we seem unable to recreate this experience, making our growth in creativity seem frustratingly random or lucky.
Seven Key Principles
Mr. Johnson's engaging writing style guides us through seven key areas that must be understood in order to maximize our creativity, the key areas being:
1. The adjacent possible - the principle that at any given moment, extraordinary change is possible but that only certain changes can occur (this describes those who create ideas that are ahead of their time and whose ideas reach their ultimate potential years later).
2. Liquid networks - the nature of the connections that enable ideas to be born, to be nurtured and to blossom and how these networks are formed and grown.
3. The slow hunch - the acceptance that creativity doesn't guarantee an instant flash of insight but rather, germinates over time before manifesting.
4.Serendipity - the notion that while happy accidents help allow creativity to flourish, it is the nature of how our ideas are freely shared, how they connect with other ideas and how we perceive the connection at a specific moment that creates profound results.
5. Error - the realization that some of our greatest ideas didn't come as a result of a flash of insight that followed a number of brilliant successes but rather, that some of those successes come as a result of one or more spectacular failures that produced a brilliant result.
6. Exaptation - the principle of seizing existing components or ideas and repurposing them for a completely different use (for example, using a GPS unit to find your way to a reunion with a long-lost friend when GPS technology was originally created to help us accurately bomb another country into oblivion).
7. Platforms - adapting many layers of existing knowledge, components, delivery mechanisms and such that in themselves may not be unique but which can be recombined or leveraged into something new that is unique or novel.
Insight That Resonates
Mr. Johnson guides the reader through each of these seven areas with examples that are relevant, doing so in a way that hits the reader squarely between the eyes. I found myself on many an occasion exclaiming inwardly "This idea or example is brilliant in its obviousness and simplicity".
"Where Good Ideas Come From" is a book that one must read with a pen or highlighter in hand as nuggets pop out and provide insight into past or current challenges around creativity and problem solving.
When someone decides to explore ways of helping you or your organization be more creative and they are getting ready to explore a rah-rah session, an offsite brain-storming session or they are looking to play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, ask them if they have explored the foundational reasons behind what makes us creative.
And then buy a copy of this book for them.
I believe this book should be mandatory reading for every student, teacher and leader.
We are all students of Life.
We all at some point, teach others.
And if we accept that a leader is someone who influences others and we acknowledge that everyone influences someone at some point, then we are all leaders also.
Educational institutions, governments and corporations should make this book mandatory reading for everyone within their walls.
"Where Good Ideas Come From" is a fun read as well as a profound one.
May your creativity blossom as a result of exploring it.
Create a great day.
Harry
2010-10-06
By Dominique Elliott (Savannah, GA USA)
For those who enjoyed The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air, Johnson's latest book is another amazing treat in which science meets history, sociology and culture.
In Where Good Ideas Come From, Johnson examines the way in which people, environments and ideas meet. With references that range from biology, mathematics, neuroscience, technology, engineering, he argues convincingly that "analyzing innovation on the scale of individuals and organizations --- --- distorts our view" and that looking at patterns of creativity within cross-disciplinary contexts is far more fruitful. And Johnson is truly a polymath.
Great ideas surveyed range from Tarnier's incubator, Baggage's Difference Engine, YouTube, double-entry accounting, the Phoenix memo, the DEVONthink database program, Gutenberg's printing press etc... But this is not about cataloguing ideas, but understanding their genesis and their development, in the context of their respective socio-cultural environment.
The author does live what he preaches. In wonderful Johnson-style prose, he examines the "connective talents" of Carbon and extrapolates on the chaotic nature of innovative system. The books itself is highly original, and, given the complexity of its ideas, extremely accessible. You will not be disappointed.
2010-10-05
By Edward Durney (San Francisco)
Working as a patent attorney, sometimes a new idea that stuns me will jump out from a patent. An elegant, innovative idea that makes me wonder how anyone thought of it. Often, my next thought, though, as I understand the idea better, is how simple the idea is. So I think, why didn't I think of that?
Steven Johnson's "Natural History of Innovation" shines some light on the first question as he tells us "Where Good Ideas Come From." Johnson looks back through science history as he teases out from science history, and from natural history, seven "patterns" in which new ideas are formed. Johnson backs up with examples each of the seven groups in his taxonomy of the origins of ideas. Good examples, well told, are what make the book.
Johnson writes science history well. Like in Johnson's earlier book, The Invention of Air, the science history he writes here reads like a fascinating tale of adventure. Although a bit breathless at times, and sometimes drawing too much from too little, Johnson caught my attention early and held it all the way through this fairly long new book.
And it's not just a history of scientists and discoveries. Johnson looks too at nature - like how reefs pack together life and promote evolution - and society - like how larger cities generate exponentially more innovation than smaller towns.
On occasion, Johnson's taxonomy is a tad bit tortured. The seven patterns each get a chapter in the book. But for me, the names of the patterns and the particular examples grouped in them do not give much insight. The patterns - while interesting - seem more organizational groupings than anything else. The patterns are the skeleton. Not much flesh there. The meat in the book is in the examples.
In fact, the insight for me came from the light Johnson shines on my second question - why didn't I think of that? To broaden that question into its most compelling form, how can we, both personally and as a society, increase the number of good ideas we have in the arts, in science, in sociology and government, and in technology?
That $64,000 question Johnson does not really try to answer. He does give some clues. (One thing he says caught my intereste as a patent attorney. That is, we get more good ideas by connecting them than by protecting them. In other words, the patent system may not be hurting, instead of meeting, its goal of promoting innovation.)
Johnson's book is ambitious. He covers a lot of ground, from scientists to nature to arts to government to society. His idea that good ideas in all of these fields develop in the same recognizable patterns is a bold one. In a sense, he is looking for a unified theory of innovation.
Did Johnson find that unified theory? If he did, you won't find it on a particular page in this book. But by joining Johnson in exploring this question, I learned a lot and thought a lot. That made the book worthwhile for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment