Where Good Ideas Come From- Lit Circle Response

Where Good Ideas Come From

Meeting #2, pages 43-128

The three chapters in this reading discuss three major patterns that tend to be the platforms for innovation: Liquid Networks, The Slow Hunch, and Serendipity. Liquid Networks allow people’s ideas to flow freely and connect; Johnson often associates this particular pattern with structure and communication. He then discusses “slow hunches,” in which ideas sit idle in the mind for years, until one day the ideas are complete; Johnson discusses the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the World Wide Web to further get across his point. In Serendipity, the creation of environments that foster such moments are talked about, as well as the effect that the internet and new programs, such as DEVONthink, have had on these serendipitious moments.

“[Serendipity] completes a hunch, or opens up a door in the adjacent possible that you had overlooked” (109). Johnson proves this statement by examining various moments when creativity thrives and people are enlightened with a serendipitious insight. He explains that going for walks, taking long showers or baths, reading, keeping journals, and looking everything up on the internet often lead to those moments where slow hunches are completed, and innovation is created. By allowing creativity and switching things up a bit, innovation is nearly unavoidable. Google requires its employees to spend one hour of every five hours they work, working on their own projects. By allowing personal creativity and creating serendipitious environments, innovative ideas are discovered and completed.