Where in the World Do Ideas Come From?

Students are always walking into my office asking me where ideas come from. Thanks to Scott Nadzan, who sent this piece over to me on innovation, I now have an answer for them. Since I can't draw as well as this fellow, I'll send them to this piece on where good ideas come from. Steven Johnson, who is the author of this piece, has been a speaker at TED talks and provides a very interesting way to think about ideas.

Ideas and Innovation

Yesterday while hanging around the airport waiting for my flight to be ready to leave, I ran across in Wired magazine the short but interesting article on ideas and innovation, Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson on Where Ideas Come From. I liked several things in the piece… the notion that ideas are like networks…that to create good stuff you have to create a lot of bad stuff first…and that ideas come through collaboration and standing on the shoulders of other ideas before you. A quick but very interesting read.