Where good ideas come from?

(10 November 2019)

I recently read Steven Johnson’s book ”Where Good ideas come from: The natural history of innovation” . Steven opens up the theme with a range examples from research and companies. He is not an innovation researcher, however, which can perhaps be noticed throughout the book and I am not quite sure if it is scientifically highly robust. However, perhaps that is why the book is easy to read and theoretisizes innovation processes so inspiringly and boldly. One particulatly interesting term that Steven introduces in the book to open up the complex theme is liquid networks. Contradicting the popular myth of sole inventors working alone, good ideas may be often generated in connection with other people. Optimal environments for innovation generation seems to be such surroundings, where people and ideas collide spontaniously. Another interesting point of view in the book is that great innovation often come with a slow hunch. This means that innovation may not be generated very rapidly, but may require a slow processes where the inventor is strugling to frame something new. Innovation are also always made in the adjacent possible, which means that a new innovation is always made based on earlier innovations, which consequently make possible to generate something new.