Book Discussion, November 18, 2011

Where Good Ideas Come From

Steven Johnson

Introduction: Darwin’s Paradox

• What is it about coral reefs that enable innumerable species to thrive in otherwise nutrient poor waters? It is the story of the innovative persistence of life.
• The super-linear city – identification of a mathematical relationship between the size of animals and their lifespan and heart rate – referred to as the Negative quarter power scaling. The larger an animal species is, the slower their heart rate and the longer they will live.
• A similar relationship exists in cities – governs the growth of infrastructure (energy supplies and transportation).
•  Innovation behaves similarly but in a positive direction. In other words, a city 10 times as large as another will generate ideas 17 times faster than the smaller one.  The average resident living in a city of 5 million is 3 times more creative than a resident of a city with 100,000 residents.
• 10/10 rule – as new paradigms keep rolling in, the intervals between them are decreasing. It used to take a decade to build a new technology and another decade for it to become widely accepted. Example: HDTV
• With the advent of the Internet, it now only takes 2 years for internet-related technology to be built, introduced and adopted. Example: YouTube
• The old belief that competition spurs innovation no longer holds true.  Openness and connectivity are more valuable to innovation than competition.
• How does this relate to Future Generations?
•   Does our Circleville location hinder us? How does it help us
• A city location encourages collisions but also creates distractions that can quickly pull you off track.
• Need to focus more on how to simulate conditions in the city or in a reef, not so much on physical location.
• If connecting and collisions among different cultures, disciplines and viewpoints encourage innovation, what can we do to promote these conditions in Circleville? Within the Future Generations universe (countries, board, partners and alumni?
• Move up our International staff meeting to April and encourage the trustees to participate as equal partners.
•  Turn the heat on so people in Circleville don’t hole up in their offices.
• Encourage people to not eat lunch at their desk – but to encourage them to eat in the Incubator or in the sitting area.
• How do we engage the whole team in understanding innovation?
• Leave inquisitive statements on the blackboards in each office to pique people’s interest
• Create opportunities for reading about innovations in the Incubator
• Whiteboards in the hallway (Preservation society might object)
• Offer a brown bag discussion session once a week