Where Good Ideas Come From
by Steven Johnson
Johnson identifies seven patterns behind innovation across history: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation and platforms. It is intellectual history more than a how-to, elegantly argued, and its practical lesson is that ideas come from connected, open environments rather than lone genius.
Read it if…
you want to understand the conditions that produce ideas and build them into your work.
Skip it if…
you want tactics; it is a history of ideas with implications.
Three things you will actually use
- Keep slow hunches alive in writing.
- Seek liquid networks where ideas mix.
- Embrace error and borrowing; both drive innovation.
Do this first
Keep a commonplace book: write down hunches and reread them monthly to let them collide.
Our verdict
Elegant and thoughtful; innovation as ecology.
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