What types of organizations and spaces lead to creativity and innovation? This is a fundamental question that higher education institutions confront on a continual basis. I recently finished reading Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. He presents several thought provoking ideas that I believe can prove useful for thinking about higher education’s role in supporting innovation, creativity, and new ideas.
Johnson seeks an answer to the basic question of what types of spaces have historically supported creativity and innovation.
Much of his work draws from an environmental perspective using key notions from biology, ecology, and other related fields to understand innovations.
Three ideas from the book strike me as particularly important for those of us in higher education.
1. The value of the adjacent possible.
Although we build myths about the single inventor dreaming up new ideas in the garage, the reality is that most new ideas come from exploring what Johnson describes as the adjacent possible. The concept describes a future state just beyond what we currently understand. Most of us that do research know that you aren’t likely to find a dramatically new interpretation for some idea. Rather, you look one step removed for the next frontier. If you go too far afield, it is hard to fully conceptualize and operationalize an idea.
However, if you take advantage of the new spaces just beyond our current understanding, you can explore a world that is both an advancement but still within our reach.
This is no stronger an argument for supporting basic research as this is what helps us expand and take advantage of the adjacent possible.
2. The power of the slow hunch.
We have fantasized the power of the eureka moment. I think about Doc Brown falling in his bathroom and coming up with the idea for the flux capacitor. It makes for a great plot point in a movie, but that isn’t how great ideas actually occur.
Instead, ideas float in the background, considered for years, and only after a long time do they come to the forefront once they are ready. Usually, this occurs once a series of slow hunches come together to result in the great idea. One person has half of a great idea, but they can’t do anything with their half until someone brings the other piece of the puzzle.
3. Connections are power.
Johnson draws a fascinating comparison between ideas and coral reefs. Teeming with diverse life, the creatures in a coral reef interact and rely upon each other to survive and flourish. The coral provides a foundation— a framework— for the life in the reef to build upon. Similarly, frameworks such as the internet, cities, or universities provide a way to support connections and interactions between individuals. This allows people to mingle, merge their slow hunches, and explore the adjacent possible.
I’ve been thinking a great deal in recent months about cities, higher education, innovation, and creativity. I believe cities are powerful entities that will influence much of the next century. I also believe in the power and potential of higher education to support social and economic development. Johnson’s book provides a fascinating history of innovation and helps answer the question of “Where do good ideas come from?” If you’re interested in these questions, I highly encourage you to read his work.
