‘Eureka Moments’ And Other Innovation Myths

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‘Eureka Moments’ And Other Innovation Myths

October 16th, 2010 ipadoholic Leave a comment Go to comments

(CNN) — An apple fell on Isaac Newton. Electricity struck Benjamin Franklin .

Based on those well-worn chronological examples, you may regard all inventors, creators and thought dudes are strike with enchantingly short “eureka moments” that now propel our enlightenment to new heights of enhancement and discovery.

But what if that’s all baloney?

A number of writers this month have been severe these and other long-held doctrine about enhancement — from the fact and novella of that “a-ha” short time to the kinds of people who lend towards to innovate, and that ideas are best.

Drawing sufficient of the concern is Steven Johnson’s new book, “Where Good Ideas Come From.” But a new educational paper from MIT and the let go of “The Social Network,” that film about Facebook’s innovative founder, have been stirring up the bloggers, too.

Here’s a rapid look at a few of these enhancement myths. Chip in your own thoughts in the explanation division below. If you’re on Twitter, you can use the #goodideas crush label to confer Johnson’s book, and come together us is to #cnntechlunch review Friday at noon ET. We’ll talk about these problems then.

Myth No. 1: Ideas only cocktail in to people’s heads

The invention of the World Wide Web shows that great ideas do not arrive as epiphanies, Johnson writes in “Where Good Ideas Come From.”

“The Web came in to being as an classic slow hunch: from a child’s scrutiny of a hundred-year-old encyclopedia, to a freelancer’s inactive side plan written to help him keep follow of his colleagues, to a think over endeavor to erect a new data platform,” Johnson writes.

He told Salon.com in an interview that “concepts take time to rise and breed and lay around in the back of [innovator's] minds infrequently for decades.”

So do not design to arise up with out-of-the-blue brilliance.

Myth No. 2: Big tech firms do many of the innovating currently

Based on the eyeglasses that tech companies make out of announcing new products (when Apple denounced a new iPod in September, Chris Martin from Coldplay and Lady Gaga were on palm ), it would be easy to regard that the large companies of Silicon Valley are carrying out many of the innovating these days.

Not so, according to a new study.

Eric Von Hippel of MIT and colleagues found that periodic Joes outlay more allowance in total on building new consumer products as all of the enhancement firms in the UK. And more than 6 percent of the 1,173 people complicated had participated in “household” innovation.

“Hippel’s work suggests that people similar to you and me (and Mark Frauenfelder ) are a dark engine of mercantile growth as we reshape the things that we buy,” Alexis Madrigal writes in The Atlantic’s tech division . “If we pretence that American households are as innovative as their British counterparts, 14.5 million of us rise products, and we outlay something similar to $18 billion a year carrying out it.”

Myth No. 3: Ideas form many frequently during ‘alone time’

Perhaps it would be correct to end sitting in that chair, staring out the window and anticipating for your next great thought to rush in to your brain from that cappuccino you’ve been nursing.

Good ideas many frequently come from organisation brainstorms, writes Johnson, or at the really smallest from meeting with a well-informed network of people.

“What I’m adage is people have improved ideas if they’re related to rich, heterogeneous networks of other individuals. If you put yourself in an mood with lots of not similar perspectives, you yourself are going to have better, sharper, more initial ideas,” he told Salon.

In his book, Johnson cites a investigate from McGill University that used dark cameras in 4 heading systematic labs to watch how scientists worked. Innovative discoveries tended not to come about in isolation, the book says. Instead, scientists were many innovative when they met for brainstorming sessions.

“The belligerent 0 of enhancement was not the microscope,” Johnson writes. “It was the discussion table.”

Myth No. 4: The most appropriate ideas are new

If “that Facebook movie” taught us anything, it’s that a few of the most appropriate ideas need a jumping-off point. In the film “The Social Network,” two Harvard twins nudge Mark Zuckerberg, now Facebook’s CEO, to help them erect a amicable network. And the twins, in turn, are piggybacking on ideas from Friendster and MySpace.

In “Where Good Ideas Come From,” Johnson gives this process a wonky name: “the adjoining possible.” It refers to the thought that inventions and ideas have to erect on any other. Just since you have a crazy-awesome process in your head doesn’t meant this is the time to govern it. And it’s not bad that products lend towards to erect on tip of one other — enhancing as they go.

Johnson lists Charles Babbage as the most appropriate e.g. of this. Babbage flattering sufficient invented the P.C. — in the 1800s. But existing technology wasn’t ready for him. There were no silicon chips, for instance.

“Babbage simply didn’t have the right block parts,” Johnson writes. “Even if Babbage had built a appurtenance to his specs, it is misleading either it would have worked, since Babbage was effectively sketching out a appurtenance is to electronic age during the center of the steam-powered automatic revolution.”

Babbage died before realizing his draft is to “Analytical Engine.” He was as well far ahead, and his thought didn’t erect on others of his time.

The Economist writes in a review of the book : “Cultural and amicable life is moreover an scrutiny of the adjoining possible, as one astonishing doorway opens and then leads to others.”