Where Good Ideas Come From The Natural History of Innovation

by Johnson, Steven

• ISBN13: 9781594487712
• ISBN10: 1594487715
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-05
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Summary

One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from? With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the insight of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for Youand the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Mapand The Invention of Airto address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward. Beginning with Charles Darwin's first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines. Most exhilarating is Johnson's conclusion that with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. Where Good Ideas Come Fromis essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow's great ideas.

Author Biography

Steven Johnson is the author of the bestsellers The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, Everything Bad Is Good for You, and Mind Wide Open, as well as Emergence and Interface Culture. He is the founder of a variety of influential websites- currently, outside.in-and is a contributing editor to Wired. He lives in Brooklyn, with his wife and sons.