Where good ideas come?- Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson – Where good ideas come from (2010) and

Steven Johnson tours the ghost map (2010)

The more recent of the two talks is a top notch TED presentation, so feel free to skip straight to the clip itself. Oh well, if you insist, I’ll elaborate. Steven Johnson is an extremely talented thinker and writer who has been wondering where new ideas come from. Or to paraphrase Jeff Pulver, where do we get our ‘shower moments’?  Johnson thinks he has found the answer: the coffee shop. The coffee shop, according to Johnson, dates back to around 1650 and encouraged the Brits to drink stimulants (coffee and tea) that arouse the more intelligent neurons rather than booze (beer and wine) that tend to depress innovative thinking. According to Johnson, the coffee shop creates a creative space where good ideas can interconnect, conjugate and ‘have sex’ (as opposed to pubs I guess, where people themselves can get drunk, interconnect and then have real sex).  In some cases, he says, the coffee shop ideas take years to ‘fade into focus’. That’s a pretty long shower, Jeff. And loads of lattes.

Indeed a lot of good and stimulating projects come from sitting in coffee shops and sharing half-baked ideas with close friends (who will not finish the baking and eat the cake).  In Israel, the tens of thousands of coffee houses (there seem to be one per capita) are indeed a breeding ground for ideas. I took a look at “Start-up Nation” by Dan Senor and Paul Singer http://www.startupnationbook.com/

and found that they don’t mention the coffee house as a source of  Israeli innovation. Guys,  in your second edition please correct this slip.

In my opinion many new ideas come from moments spent alone, rather than in company, often doing something routine (like washing the dishes) which frees the mind to wonder and wander. Then of course when you look back, you say to yourself “however did I think up that one”. If we had the answer, we would all be Edison.

Steve has another excellent 2006 TED talk, this time closer to my area of expertise – smells and bacteria.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_tours_the_ghost_map.html

Turns out in mid 19^th century London the smell of sewage, garbage and decay was so offal that people thought that the odors themselves were contagious and spreading the cholera epidemics. It took two clever Brits to figure out that it was coming from contaminated drinking water wells.  You must infer that they spent most of their free time in coffee houses, rather than having pints with the boys.
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.ht