Chance favours the connected mind is Steven Johnson summary of “Where good ideas come from” in a five year study into creativity and innovation. In his new book due in early October, he identifies the five 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.
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, Johnson shows how we can make more of our ideas good ones by developing the connected mind.
Johnson explains, there are recurring patterns, more often a slow hunch developing over a number of years is more predominant rather than a Eureka breakthrough moment. Good ideas can take a long time to evolve and can remain dormant for a number of years. Tim Berners Lee and his ten year evolution of the concept of the world wide web is a good example.
Final forms are often the collision or collusion of ideas. Ideas in hunch state need to collide and fuse, therefore there is a need to locate systems of connectivity to allow hunches to come together. It’s all about creating a space where ideas can mingle, swap and create new forms. What are the “spaces” that historically have led to unusual rates of creativity and innovation. It may have been the coffee house in the age of enlightenment or the Parisian salon in the age of modernism. Now, the internet has enabled a great increase in connectivity, there are just so many new ways to connect, great ways of discovering new ideas.
An increase in connectivity has been the primary engine of creativity in innovation and creativity. If the real lesson of Steve Johnson’s book is that chance favours the connected mind, that is why we are so pleased with the idea of pro.manchester.connects. Connecting Innovation and Enterprise to Advice and Finance. pro.manchester.connects - “Linking the thinking”
Where good ideas come from : the natural history of innovation. Steven Johnson is published by Allen Lane on the 7th October. Check out the video clip. Amazon.
Sign up today and "subscribe" for e-mail notification of updates. This blog post forms part of the pro.manchester research into Innovation and Enterprise in Greater Manchester. The views expressed are my own and in no way reflect pro.manchester policy. In no way should the comments be considered as investment advice or guidelines. UK Economics news and analysis : no politics, no dogma, no polemics, just facts.
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