Where good ideas come from : the seven patterns of innovation / Steven Johnson.
Publisher: London : Penguin, 2011Description: 326 p. ; 20 cm001: 42802ISBN: 9780141033402 (pbk.) :Subject(s): Creative thinking | PsychologyDDC classification: 153.35 JOH LOC classification: BF408Summary: In this book, one of our most innovative, popular thinkers, Steven Johnson, takes on one of life's key questions: where do good ideas come from?Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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Book | MAIN LIBRARY Book | 153.35 JOH (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 112305 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Where do good ideas come from? And what do we need to know and do to have more of them? In Where Good Ideas Come From , Steven Johnson, one of our most innovative popular thinkers, explores the secrets of inspiration.
He identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of great ideas, from the cultivation of hunches to the importance of connectivity and how best to make use of new technologies. Most exhilarating is his conclusion- with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. By recognizing where and how patterns of creativity occur - whether within a school, a software platform or a social movement - he shows how we can make more of our ideas good ones.
Originally published: New York: Penguin; London: Allen Lane, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
In this book, one of our most innovative, popular thinkers, Steven Johnson, takes on one of life's key questions: where do good ideas come from?
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Publishers Weekly Review
Johnson-writer, Web guru, and bestselling author of Everything Bad Is Good for You-delivers a sweeping look at innovation spanning nearly the whole of human history. What sparks our great ideas? Johnson breaks down the cultural, biological, and environmental fuel into seven broad "patterns," each packed with diverse, at times almost disjointed anecdotes that Johnson synthesizes into a recipe for success. A section on "slow hunches" captivates, taking readers from the FBI's work on 9/11 to Google's development of Google News. A section on error takes us through a litany of accidental innovations, including the one that eventually led to the invention of the computer. "Being right keeps you in place," Johnson reminds us. "[B]eing wrong forces us to explore." It's eye-opening stuff-although it does require an investment from the reader. But as fans of the author's previous work know, an investment in Johnson pays off, and those who stick with the author as he meanders through an occasional intellectual digression will come away enlightened and entertained, and with something perhaps even more useful-how to recognize the conditions that could spark their own creativity and innovation. Another mind-opening work from the author of Mind Wide Open. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.CHOICE Review
Johnson (The Invention of Air, CH, Jul'09, 46-6166; Everything Bad Is Good for You, 2005; Mind Wide Open, CH, Jul'04, 41-6843) provides an interesting survey of seven major types or categories of events and enabling forces from which innovations have tended to arise over the centuries. He chooses breadth of coverage and anecdotes from widely varying topics and sources to bring to life his descriptions of these major patterns of innovation. Other authors have written about these sources of innovation, but Johnson's book provides a few things that make it an excellent complement to existing works. First, he weaves in useful contextual commentary, a "wide-angle lens" or "distance approach" to the discussion of these sources of innovation. Second, he brings the ideas together (most have previously been discussed individually) in one source and shows connections, threads, and differences among them. Third, he provides new analysis that supports an argument for the importance of both "networked" and "non-market motivated" efforts in the genesis of innovations and new technologies. The book ends with a useful chronology of innovations and a "notes and further reading" section. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. J. J. Bailey University of IdahoBooklist Review
The figure of the lone genius may captivate us, but we intuit that such geniuses' creations don't materialize in a vacuum. Johnson supported the intuition in his biography of eighteenth-century scientist Joseph Priestly (The Invention of Air, 2009) and here explores it from different angles using sets of anecdotes from science and art that underscore some social or informational interaction by an inventor or artist. Assuring readers that he is not engaged in intellectual tourism, Johnson recurs to the real-world effects of individuals and organizations operating in a fertile information environment. Citing the development of the Internet and its profusion of applications such as Twitter, the author ascribes its success to exaptation and stacked platforms. By which he means that curious people used extant stuff or ideas to produce a new bricolage and did so because of their immersion in open networks. With his own lively application of stories about Darwin's theory of atolls, the failure to thwart 9/11, and musician Miles Davis, Johnson connects with readers promoting hunches and serendipity in themselves and their organizations.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 BooklistKirkus Book Review
A modern, interdisciplinary analysis of the social-environmental patterns most suited to idea generation, and how we can use their lessons to foster innovation.Wired contributing editor Johnson (The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America, 2008, etc.) identifies seven such patterns: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation and emergent platforms. In each chapter, the author outlines the basic principle of a pattern, then contextualizes its importance with an array of historical and contemporary examples. He emphasizes the importance of the "space of innovation" as being paramount to success. An individual's genius, he argues, is less imperative than a fertile "intellectual ecosystem," and networks are vital, as evidenced by the astounding creative production of interconnectedsystems like the Internet and the vibrant densityof cities.Using the remarkable "epic diversity"of coral reefs as a metaphor, Johnson posits that an environment embracing an open flow of information and thought is more likely to produce ideas at a higher rate than a closed or hierarchicalnetwork. Combined with several more daily patterns, like writing everything down to aggregate a thought process or picking up a new hobby, soliciting such "liquid networks" is bound to help percolate that big idea. On a broader scale, businesses, schools and even the government would benefit from greater interconnectivity. The author notes that had the FBI had access to a greater information network in the weeks leading to 9/11, agents may have connected the dots to Mohamed Atta in time. Johnson also traces the origin of several magnificent ideasDarwin's theory of evolution, Kekul's insight into the molecular structure of benzeneand presents them in the context of one of the seven patterns. The author recounts dozens of examples in this vein, touching on fields as varying as economics, information technology, biology, social networking and literature. Throughout, his infectious enthusiasm and unyielding insight inspire and entertain.A robust volume that brings new perspective to an old subject.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.There are no comments on this title.