WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM

So, if you have visited this blog over the past few years, you'll know that this particular topic is of interest to me and you'll know something of my take on it.

Well, here's a TED talk about the very thing and it impresses on the listener the value of allowing the connecting of ideas instead of the protecting of them. I am not saying that 'innovators' should not be able to make money out of their intellectual efforts. I am not saying there should be no such thing as copyright. But I am saying - and have always said - that once an idea is put out there it should be allowed to connect with the people it comes into contact with because it is from such fertile connections that new ideas are made.

This is something that just happens anyway, but the lone innovator very often credits him/herself with the pure genious creation of an idea instead of realising the thing that is more likely: that the innovated new idea is the product of connections made with the ideas of others.

If you are a person who has ideas (creative or technical) and you don't want them to connect with the thinking of others, then don't put them out there; if you do put them out there, then expect them to connect with others and for others to use the ideas to make even newer 'things'.

Anyway, I don't yet know how to embed a TED talk into a blog page (I know it can be done but am not technically gifted in that area - I will try to find out). Because I don't know, here is the link. Go take a listen.

Steven Johnson - Where Good Ideas Come From

There's a book by the same man on this subject.