Title: Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

Author: Steven Johnson

Pub Date: 2010

Excellent look at ideation and the development of ideas over time. Both theoretical and practical.

Key to Johnson’s discussion is the concept of the “adjacent possible.” Simply put, like ideas tend to cluster together. When you bring different clusters together you benefit from ideas in adjacent groups. Ideas bleed into adjacent  groups, or spillover, and generate new ideas.

Johnson also debunks the notion of the “eureka moment.” Instead, Johnson shows that new innovative ideas are often born of long held hunches. Those hunches that ruminate in the back of your mind for weeks, months, and even years.

According to Johnson, “the secret to organizational inspiration is to build information networks that allow hunches to persist and disperse and recombine.” By creating high density liquid networks, organizations make is easier for innovation to happen.

But don’t take my word for it, hear Johnson describe where good ideas come from in his own words.