Innovation

Innovation is something we are supposed to be doing here. Steven Johnson, in his Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010), demonstrates that the sources of innovation are more complex and messy than we could ever imagine. Drawing on many case studies, Johnson offers insights such as follows: "The trick to having good ides is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table" (p. 42) or "good ideas are more likely to emerge in environments that contain a certain amount of noise and error" (p. 142).