{"id":362,"date":"2012-10-31T00:29:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T00:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=362"},"modified":"2012-10-31T00:29:28","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T00:29:28","slug":"where-good-ideas-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/where-good-ideas-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Good Ideas Come From"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Author Steven Johnson spoke at WorkTech 2012 in the Bay Area this year and passed on some important knowledge to all of us.\u00a0 His book <em>Where Good Ideas Come From<\/em> talks about space, innovation, workspaces, and all the things we think about when discussing smarter working.\u00a0 It was ranked one of the year\u2019s best books by The Economist, and was a finalist for best business book of 2010 in the 800CEORead awards.\u00a0 Steven completed his undergraduate degree at Brown where he studied semiotics, and received a graduate degree in English Literature from Columbia.<\/p>\n<p>So where <strong>do<\/strong> good ideas come from?\u00a0 In the 2010 book Steven discusses seven conditions that allow for discoveries and inventions to occur. These conditions are split up into the chapters of the book.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Adjacent Possible<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Liquid Networks<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Slow Hunch<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Serendipity<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Error<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Exaptation<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Platforms<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is extremely important to build diverse workspaces\u201d Steven said at the Worktech event.\u00a0 \u201cIdeas, collaboration starts here.\u201d\u00a0 Steven went on to discuss that you must create an environment where many disciplines can collide.\u00a0 Organizations need to encourage their associate\u2019s hobbies, and not just focus on tasks.\u00a0 Outside interests can spark ideas, and that is what Steven calls <strong>\u201cCross Pollination.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cIf you take a look at any system that is evolving over time, if you pause the system and stare at it for a moment, there is a fain\u00e9ant set of ways the system(s) can transform itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Adjacent Possibility<\/strong> is looking for what can be changed.\u00a0 Provided was a great example of this.\u00a0 There was a village with no hospitals or advanced technology, but they had dire need of a baby incubator.\u00a0 Simple fix you would think, you just send one, but what happens when it breaks?\u00a0 There are no spare parts nearby and there is no one to fix it.\u00a0 So they started looking for what the village <em>did<\/em> have.\u00a0 They had cars, and a couple mechanics (an adjacent possibility).\u00a0 So what if they built the incubator out of automobile parts?\u00a0 Then not only would there be spare parts, but someone to repair it if it broke.\u00a0 They tried it, and it worked.<\/p>\n<p>So if Adjacent Possibilities are the good ideas that come before you build out of existing spare parts, what are the spaces that provide spare parts?\u00a0 That\u2019s where <strong>Liquid Networks<\/strong> come in.\u00a0 Flexibility, openness, all of it is important.\u00a0 Pay attention to information spill over, listen to your neighbors, and go to coffee shops.\u00a0 Unplanned connections are a great vehicle for innovation.\u00a0 Remember to look at the interests and hobbies and how they relate to the problem you are trying to solve, because cross pollination may apply.<\/p>\n<p>In a business environment, diversity is key.\u00a0 Having a team that has a diverse background of expertise, different fields of study or skill will have a large benefit.\u00a0 \u201cWe are more creative and innovative if we surround ourselves with people from diverse disciplines and backgrounds\u201d says Johnson.\u00a0 A Stanford survey shows that innovative people have far more weak tie connections in a variety of disciplines.\u00a0 Less innovative people have a majority of strong connections to a limited amount of people disciplines.\u00a0 So don\u2019t only follow your own industry\u2019s news.<\/p>\n<p>Crowd sourcing is a great tool.\u00a0 Make sure to widen the network of employees or even former employees through a peer network.\u00a0 Offer rewards for answers to problems, and allow in external expertise.\u00a0 Diversifying the number of minds available to you as a resource is an excellent idea.\u00a0 If you have the employees, and you have a problem, why not let them help?\u00a0 They may see something you miss, or find a use for a product that you never thought of.\u00a0 Something may be designed for one purpose, but certainly can be used for another.\u00a0 In his book, Steven discusses how Gutenberg used a wine press for his printing press, and that engineers used vacuum tubes (originally made for telephone networks and radio transmission) for electronic computers.<\/p>\n<p>Steven Johnson\u2019s book <em>Where Good Ideas Come <\/em>From is available <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-From\/dp\/1594487715\">here<\/a> and you can look for future Worktech events <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unwired.eu.com\/index.php\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author Steven Johnson spoke at WorkTech 2012 in the Bay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[508],"tags":[392,797,798,799,441,785],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}