Where Good Ideas Come from

Where Good Ideas Come From

We all know a good idea when we see one: the Internet, the pencil, the light bulb, and the automobile just to name a few. But where do these good ideas come from? What sparks our imaginations into creating something so useful for all of mankind? According to Steven Johnson, good ideas “are inevitably constrained by the parts and skills that surround them. We have a natural tendency to romanticize breakthrough innovations, imagining momentous ideas transcending their surroundings, a gifted mind somehow seeing over the detritus of old ideas and ossified tradition. But ideas are works of bricolage; they’re built out of that detritus.” Contrary to popular belief, good ideas are not formed in a split-second when some brilliant mind sculpts a new invention. Johnson believes that certain environments cultivate genius ideas more often than others. These environments often exhibit seven main patterns and tend to inspire innovation more rapidly than environments lacking these patterns. In the book Where Good Ideas Come From, Johnson explores these patterns in depth, explaining exactly how good ideas come about.

In the late nineteenth century, infant mortality rates were at an alarmingly high rate compared to today’s standards. The city of Paris, France, considered very sophisticated at this time, watched as approximately one in every five babies died within a few months of birth. Death rates were even higher when a baby was born prematurely or simply born at a low birth weight. An obstetrician named Stephane Tarnier decided this was too high of a death rate among babies and wanted to make a change. Tarnier, along with help from Odile Martin, a poultry raiser for the local zoo, installed an incubator in the maternity ward of a French hospital. With just the heat from hot water bottles below a wooden box keeping them warm, Tarnier saw the mortality rates of premature babies drop almost thirty percent in a study of 500 infants. This statistical...