Commentary

Where Good Ideas Come From

by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, November 4, 2010

We're all looking for good ideas. Whether you're a marketer straining for that additional share point, or an agency exec looking for that next big thing for your client, or a publisher looking for the next killer platform, we're all out there searching for good ideas, which are at the core of innovation.

Innovation, we're told, is the solution to all of our problems and the key to all of our opportunities, whether it's the economy or fossil fuel independence or reversing diminishing returns in our media plan or making our latest webisode "go viral." Okay, but how do we innovate? Where does innovation come from? How do we create and capture some of that "lightning in a bottle"?

That's exactly the topic of the book that I'm currently reading, Steven Johnson's "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation." I just introduced Steven as a keynote at ad:tech New York this morning, and I was so inspired by his analysis of the dynamics of how innovation happens that I am making it the topic of my column today as well.

Steven, as many of you know, is an important thinker and writer on the intersection of people and technology. He writes regularly for The New York Times, Time, Wired and The Wall Street Journal. His previous books include "Everything Bad is Good for You" and "The Invention of Air." What many of you may not know is that he is one of us, a digital media entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of one of the Web's first location-based services, Outside.In. Thus, Steven has not only studied innovation, but he's done it himself -- and in our industry, no less.

In his book, Steven debunks the myth that innovation is usually delivered by the "solitary genius" in a lightning strike of brilliance. In fact, the most powerful driver of innovations is collaboration. Innovation is more likely to occur in bits, not all at once. And, most important, physical environments and circumstances are among the most important drivers of innovation. He points to examples ranging from the coffee shops of 17^th century London to cafeterias in U.S. research laboratories.

If your business is about finding good ideas, "Where Good Ideas Come From" is a must-read for you. For those of you who have already read it, please use the comments to tell us what you think.

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4 comments about "Where Good Ideas Come From".

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Larry Czerwonka from happinessu, November 4, 2010 at 5:31 p.m.
Bringing together widely different views to get fresh ideas is why i set up a group 15 months ago that meet once a month and talk about what they are dong an dhow they are doing it, we have doctors, businessmen, artists, musicians, housewife's, surfers,high school drop outs to PhD's and you would be amazed the chemistry and freshness of ideas.
the book makes it easier to show people why i have been doing this :) and to "get: a tool i created 5 plus years ago called the "idea wall" for virtual idea collaboration.
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Mark McLaughlin, November 4, 2010 at 6:37 p.m.

Innovation is not a strategy.
Innovation is what excellence looks like during times of rapid transformations.
If you set out to become "more innovative" - you've missed the point. But, you have found a convenient way to dodge a much harder discussion about how to be excellent in a world where change occurs rapidly.
Innovation matters but it is a metric applied with hindsight.
Apple, for example, is innovative based on their track record. But, the only reason this may hold true going forward is that they have a relentless determination to design excellent products that anticipate technological change.
Steve Jobs never sends designers back to their cubicles with the command to be "more innovative" - I am sure of that.

Mark McLaughlin, November 4, 2010 at 6:42 p.m.

Individuals have big ideas. Teams transform good big ideas into real world products or services. Committees decide if ideas should get funded.

I am certain that a committee never had a big idea.

Great working environments empower individuals to surface ideas and larger groups help sort out which are the best. But, "big ideas" as some kind of spontaneous combustion happening in a cluster of cooperative minds is nonsense.

Dave Morgan from Simulmedia, November 4, 2010 at 11:54 p.m.

Mark, I disagree. Innovation can be a strategy, and it's not about groupthink. Steven's point is that diversity of interaction and collaboration among people are very healthy for innovation. It's not about innovation on demand, but it is about creating environments that foster more innovation.