Where Good Ideas Come FromThe Natural History of Innovation

Steven Johnson (2)

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Summary

Where Good Ideas Come From

By: Steven Johnson (2)

Narrarated by: Eric Singer

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 You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to 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 From is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow's great ideas.

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Audiobook Information
EDITOR'S PICK // New York Times Best Seller
  • Edition: Unabridged
  • Author: Steven Johnson (2) (See All Books)
  • Date Released: Oct 5, 2010
  • Publisher: Penguin Audio
  • Genre: Business & Economics

Total File Size: 197 MB (7 files) Total Length: 6 Hours, 47 Minutes

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Michelangelo Matos

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10.05.10
Steven Johnson (2), Where Good Ideas Come From
2010 | Label: Penguin Audio

Steven Johnson connects the dots between environments and innovation
Connections come easily to Steven Johnson. He’s never simply glib or pedantic — when he says something has X-number of components, it doesn’t feel as if he’s delivering a pitch (the way it too often seems in popular science writing), but like that’s simply where his thinking and work got him. In his seventh book, Where Good Ideas Come From, Johnson sets out to find the parallels between innovative ecosystems. He argues that environments that nurture the largest number of ideas — cities, the Internet — are similar in structure to something like a coral reef. What makes the most difference isn’t solitary bursts of sudden, unimpeachable genius, but the collision of ideas within busy spaces, and the use of every conceivable tool at one’s (or everyone’s) disposal to shape ideas. “[W]e are often better served by connecting ideas than we are by protecting them,” he writes in the book’s introduction.

Fans of Johnson’s previous books The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air will be delighted to find that Where Good Ideas Come From is, as he acknowledges, “the closing volume in an unofficial trilogy” with them. “In a sense, you can think of this book as the latent theory lurking behind those more focused narrative case-studies.” But Johnson’s ideas are all grounded in clearly defined examples, which are amplified by the matter-of-factness of his prose.

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Too Dry

mightymur

As a non-scientist, I prefer science writers like Mary Roach, whose writing is understandable and fascinating to those of us on the other side of the brain. This could very well be a world-changing book, but I couldn't get through it. Way too dry for me. The long descriptions of the Galapagos in the beginning had me zoning out and wondering when my audiobook credits renewed so I could get a book that held my attention. As I said, I'm not a scientist, so this is a highly subjective review. I'm reviewing his writing style, which is too dry to get his ideas across to me. (I wonder if emusic carries any Mary Roach...)

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