Ending the year with a post about a great book I have started to read: Where do good ideas come from (Steven Johnson). It reads like the script of Casablanca: one big collection of memorable thoughts and quotes supported by examples and reading like a novel.

Although I'm only 1/3 underway it is useful to share some insights already. For starters with 7 say elements that stimulate new idea forming: adjacent possible (translate as: an idea can be ahead of its time but maybe not too far ahead to make it work), liquid networks, allowing slow hunches, serendipity, error, exaptation (haven't gotten around to what that means yet…), platforms. 

But summarised in one word: connections. Between (small) ideas, hunches, people. Allowing, encouraging, fostering them. "When nature finds itself in need of new 'ideas' it strives to connect, not protect". And so many more super-quotes. "To get a new idea sometimes you just have to open a door, at other monents you have to move a wall". etc etc.

But in essence it's about connections. A famous case where this did not happen was the FBI information processing structure; would they have allowed a more connecting structure and have allowed their people to use it (neural networks are the most powerful of all), they might have – nothing is certain of course – prevented 9/11.

It's not all chance. For 'serendipity' (accidental connections) to work, the discoveries need to find an anchor. So: create an environment that allows serendipity, error, new connections; but somehow stimulate that people anchor them as well so the results become useful. One of the ways that this could take place is allow people (talking about organisational policies right now) to take time off their regular chores and allow them to do something different. As easy as taking a walk, do something unrelated to ordinary tasks. To get new ideas, old information has to be rearranged differently, and sometimes that requires a different physical environment as well.

And on and on and on. Examples are myriad. Applying these lessons in practice successfully is what will make the difference. Allow chaos to an extent, as order seldom creates innovation. And that's it for this year. Until the uneventful number 2011, but therein lies a chance as well…