where good ideas come from

How does serendipity add to the process of innovation and ideas?

-serendipity is accidental connection -serendipity is built out of happy accidents, but what makes them happy is that the discovery you made is important to you (or your idea)

disorganization effect the brain

-the more disorganized you are the smarter you are -Disorganization in the brain allows for seemingly unrelated ideas to collide in order to create ideas or further a hunch

associative state?

-Being removed from the task-based focus of modern life Given time, your mind will stumble across old connections that it had overlooked and you experience serendipity

why is adjacent possible so vital?

-because can't go from the steam engines to electric trains in a single leap. A series of events, skills, tools and materials need to have occurred/been invented/existed for progress and innovation to occur

difference between snap judgments and long drawn out ideas?

snap judgments: rarities in the history of world-changing ideas. long drawn out ideas: allow for more opportunity of gained knowledge

what is 10/10 rule how has it changed?

A decade to build the new platform, and a decade for it to find a mass audience (pg. 13 Johnson) Was first changed by YouTube when it broke the time barrier that it needed to take off as a popular platform.

how has google created a foundation for ideas to grow?

"20 percent time" program. For every four hours a google engineer spent working on official company projects, the engineers are required to spend one hour on their own pet project, guided by their own passions and interests. Adsense was partially generated during 20 percent time and same with google news

How does the author use gas, solid and liquid to describe the potential of innovation?

"In a gas , chaos rules; new configurations are possible, but they are constantly being disrupted and torn apart by the volatile nature of the environment. In a solid, the opposite happens: the patterns have stability, but they are incapable of change. A liquid network creates a more promising environment for the system to explore the adjacent possible. New configurations can emerge through random connections formed between molecules."

How is the physical structure of a place or building important to innovation and ideas?

Making the work environment more interactive. Not closing people off to cubicles.

open and closed networks?

An open network is a work environment that carves out spaces for slow hunches, cordoned off from all the immediate dictates of the day's agenda. An open network also includes a space where slow hunches can travel to other minds, where they can be augmented and polished. Examples: living in a city is an open network, because you have readily available access to other sources such as people; whereas if you live in a rural space, the hunch is stunted in your mind, and cultivation of that hunch can go no further. A closed network is a hunch that is not allowed the opportunity to connect with other minds; therefore this hunch is never cultivated into information that could help individuals. In ch. 3, the FBI's information network, with regards to the precedented information on 9/11, is a perfect example of a closed network. Outsiders could not access the FBI's information in it, and the system was designed so that documents were carefully shielded from other members within the very organization (the FBI) itself. THe FBI network was based on a system of secrets and "need to know" restrictions.

intersection bewteen chance and connected mind

Chance favors the connected mind. (The more minds that are connected, the higher chance of a great idea.)

edge of chaos?

Controlled chaos when the most creativity and innovation happens

What does the author say about patterns and how these impact creativity?

If creativity scaled with size in a straight, linear fashion, more patents and inventions in a larger city. Average metropolis with a population of five million was almost three times more creative than the average resident of town of a hundred thousand. Any moment the world is capable of extraordinary change, but only specific

liquid networks and their connection to innovation

Liquid network: A densely populated liquid or plastic environment which promotes new connections and combinations. densely populated: size is vital to innovation/ concentration of data points and activity is also critical •Liquid networks create an environment where those partial ideas can connect; they provide a kind of dating service for promising hunches. • They help complete ideas Innovation to be best understood in this context is the Google 20 percent time. Innovation with regards to developing hunches means cultivating creativity in an open network environment.

What are some of the important moments in human history that illustrate the different levels of interaction leading to innovation?

Renaissance (Italy)- going from medieval cloisters (solid gaseous state) suffering from too much order, to a more "liquid" network leading to the rise of minds like da Vinci and Michelangelo and therefore the artistic and scientific flowering of the renaissance and early merchant capitalism (double-entry accounting).

how do hunches lead to great ideas?

They start off slow, and overtime they strengthen with more knowledge. Bounces off someone else's idea or something else and it comes together.

what are multiples?

When a brilliant idea comes to a scientist or inventor and they go public with it only to find out that other scientist or people have come up with the same idea over the past year in another place.

what is adjacent possible how does it impact innovation?

The adjacent possible is basically a network of ideas that can consist of hunches that can be expanded on by linking other ideas together to form some sort of solution. It is dependant on the resources available. Basically the idea that you can have a good idea that will solve a lot of problems, but it won't work unless everything has already come together to allow it to happen. Each new innovation opens up new paths to explore Ex: financial transactions -> shopping mall, auction house, and casino

Why is carbon important? How does this apply to ideas and innovation?

The reason Carbon is so important is because it's the only element that can connect with many different other elements and atoms, like oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen etc, to make new creations. This is how the Earth has been theorized to have been created. This relates to ideas and innovation because just like Carbon connects other atoms to make new creations, ideas and innovation also require social connections to expand and get over hunches to create new innovative ideas. "Carbon is the source of change"

What are the two preconditions of an idea? How do both work? What examples does the author use to illustrate these conditions?

The two preconditions of an idea are the network size and how capable the network is at adding new configurations. The network size is important because the denser the network is then the more possible connections can be made and adapted upon each other to create a greater amount of ideas and open doors for the adjacent possible. And by a network being malleable and capable of adding new configurations this allows for the adjacent possible to be explored and new ideas to be created that were once originally plain hunches. For the network size he used the example of all our neurons in our body connecting to the brain which makes new connections in millions of possible ways.

how do invention and collaboration interact?

They interact quite well. Inventions and collaborations go hand and hand as inventions come from ideas and ideas are expanded upon by other people's hunches and ideas.