ideas

Book Review: Where Good Ideas Come From

January 24, 2012 by Rosa Say

You probably knew a book review was coming when I went all “you MUST read” on you, didn’t you.

I’m giving myself a Goodreads challenge again, and this was book 5 for me this month. I tend to read more early in the year, and my challenge is to read books more consistently. The Kindle Daily Deal helps immensely, for it constantly adds to the queue in an easily affordable way. So many books, so little time…

Where Good Ideas Come From

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson (Goodreads Links)
Link to Amazon.com: Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

My Goodreads rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a word, exceptional.

I greatly appreciate authors like Johnson who are ‘slow hunch’ cultivators, thorough researchers, and articulate explainers.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation is a focused celebration of the phrase “hindsight is 20/20.” The scientific history of innovation is curated to support Johnson’s thesis, which is his answer to this question: What kind of environment creates good ideas?

There is another, more subtle question which lurks throughout the book as well: Are you open to sharing your ideas before they’ve fully formed? (…for here are the reasons why.) From his Introduction:

“The poet and the engineer (and the coral reef) may seem a million miles apart in their particular forms of expertise, but when they bring good ideas into the world, similar patterns of development and collaboration shape that process. If there is a single maxim that runs through this book’s arguments, it is that we are often better served by connecting ideas than we are by protecting them. Like the free market itself, the case for restricting the flow of innovation has long been buttressed by appeals to the “natural” order of things. But the truth is, when one looks at innovation in nature and in culture, environments that build walls around good ideas tend to be less innovative in the long run than more open-ended environments. Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders. They want to complete each other as much as they want to compete.”

He then proceeds to cover 7 different qualities he’s discerned about the nature of ideas, with very meaty chapters on each, all illustrated by the scientific stories of innovation:

Ch 1 — The Adjacent Possible (I have shared Johnson’s definition before, within this blog post: An Aloha Business for 2012)
Ch 2 — Liquid Networks
Ch 3 — The Slow Hunch
Ch 4 — Serendipity
Ch 5 — Error
Ch 6 — Exaptation
Ch 7 — Platforms

After reading each one, you can’t help but put the book aside for a moment, and ask yourself, “where do I sit with this, given my own habits?” and, “how must I further shape the environment my ideas will percolate in?”

Johnson’s book is the perfect candidate for the workplace book club. Two reasons immediately came to mind:

1. It is hugely conducive to company adaptation, and would be a marvelous trigger for in depth, “what about us?” discussion on a number of different questions which are kin to his central one [What kind of environment creates good ideas?]”¨

— Who is our Darwin in this company? (or a number of others he profiles)
— What are the important stories of our own scientific, or innovative history? How were they sequential stories and not singular events?
— Where are the different rooms of our ‘adjacent possible,’ and who, among our own people, are already working in them?
— We say mistakes are cool, and that we have to ‘fail forward’ in our experimentation, but how well do we actually understand error? Have we built on any errors?
”¨” and so forth.

2. It will add to your Language of Intention in culture-building. I love books like these, which teach you new words or phrases, and then treat you like the like-minded insider you become as those words and phrases get built upon in each successive chapter and proposition. Your own vocabulary becomes enriched.

For someone like me, strong proponent of aligning our values, Johnson’s exceptionally well written book is a good reminder about the wealth of possibility that diversity contributes to the healthy and inventive mindset. He hasn’t changed my mind about value alignment, and how necessary it is to culture-building; he zooms me forward. Okay, you have a healthy, MWA-infused culture. Now what will it take to innovate and grow?

Johnson takes his time with his book’s concluding remarks (more stories!) introducing a final filtering concept he calls “the fourth quadrant” to help us better sit with our own conclusions about what we’ve learned. I’m not one of those cynics he need worry about, but I appreciated his patience and attempt to be so open-minded and thorough. I think Johnson was very smart in including his environmental exploration with a “what if” treatise on governmental systems; it’s an arena where cultural innovation is chronically necessary, and any reformation efforts will be complex, and will take time, keeping Johnson’s book relevant for years to come.

I admit to feeling personally challenged by this book still, wondering if I understood everything, and if I took it all in completely — there is so much covered! This will therefore be a book I gladly read again (and now, not later) moving it from a 1st read appetizer and overview to a more complete meal I can savor. A certain degree of reading restraint is called for; I want to read this again before picking up any other non-fiction book.

I’d decided that my reading of Where Good Ideas Come From was long overdue because I’ve been a fan of Johnson’s blog, and reading it is a good way to get a preview of what you’ll read in his book. You can be assured the book will be better, for his blog posts are his own “slow hunches,” made public to simmer and cook with some early feedback.

View all my book reviews on Goodreads

Why Goodreads? They have become an App Smart choice for me, for I want to return to more book reading, and have set a goal to read at least 24 books this year. Read more about the Goodreads mission here, and let’s connect there if you decide to try it too! You can also follow them on Twitter.

Previous review done for Talking Story: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

Use this link if you prefer to read my book reviews here on Talking Story.

Working in today’s ‘Knowledge Economy’

October 4, 2011 by Rosa Say

In “A Job of Any Merit: Your 3 Options” I asked you to get personally involved in job creation. I asked you to share my essay, and talk about it, so with this post, we continue the conversation.

The options we have now may not be that pretty, and they may not be easy to navigate, but giving up on them doesn’t make any sense. Let’s improve them.

My purpose in outlining them as I did, was to whittle away the overwhelm, and laser-focus current affairs to an individual’s path of action, starting from the situation you may currently be in:

Option 1 is for those who still seek a job with an ‘employer’
Option 2 is for those who prefer to create their own job, or collection of jobs as their work: They want to be their own employer
Option 3 is for those who already have a job of any kind: Now past the primary ‘get a job, any job’ hurdle of options 1 and 2, they have an advantage they can further leverage

It is totally possible for a person to feel all 3 options apply to them, maybe now, maybe later.

Let’s hō‘imi, and consider how a person may move through all 3 options a bit more purposefully.

1, 2, 3: Do all apply to you?

Those who pick option 1 prefer to get employed for the obvious advantages, like a predictable paycheck (you can’t call it a ‘steady’ paycheck anymore). They may be looking for other benefits beyond compensation, even if they’re partial benefits, such as with medical insurance or 401k matching. They thrive in the social and cultural environment of a workplace you physically go to, and they want the opportunity to learn from their employer, and from an industry’s disciplines and network of partnerships. Being employed is still a great option, and it’s not going away totally — nor do we want it to. We want to improve jobs in movements like my own, with Managing with Aloha, and Business Thinking with Aloha.

[On the chance you’re newly visiting my blog, our regular programming here on Talking Story, is for the person who wants a job as a manager: This is the person I wrote Managing with Aloha for, asking that they aspire to being Alaka‘i Managers. My books are listed on this page.]

The current challenge people have in economies globally, is simply that the good jobs which represent worthwhile work are hard to find, and then secure.

Thus, the person who prefers to get employed, may feel they’re forced into newly reckoning with option 2 as well; creating a job of their own. Compensation levels have been decreasing in new job vacancies, and securing employment, even full-time employment, may not be paying the bills. People find they need to earn more. Existing jobs (if they can get them) may pay them sustenance wise, but not so people can get out of debt, hone new skills, and grow toward developing additional income streams or championing other worthwhile causes.

The point I hoped to make with option 2 in writing “A Job of Any Merit: Your 3 Options,” was that there is more possibility within that option beyond entrepreneurship: “Building my own business” is something which can intimidate us in its complexity and risk. We have to expand our vocabulary with this option, and thus, expand our opportunity. Who knows? You may move from feeling forced into this option, to actually starting to want it — in exploring this option, you’ve made the shift from the half-empty to half-full viewpoint. There are benefits here too; they’re just different ones.

Option 3 presented a challenge: If you have a job of any kind at all, you have some degree of leverage, for that job represents an advantage. Now it is time to capitalize on what you have, build on it, and optimize it fully. Turn job into the work of your heart’s desire.

Then pay it forward: Option 3 reminds us of the Golden Rule, and asks you to do for others as you would have them do for you. Don’t make any assumptions in prejudging others who are unemployed; just help them however you can (Did you read this post? “They know how to lead — and be led.”]. Prosperity is a concept of abundance, and we can share the wealth of work dignity freely, knowing that good begets more good. In doing so, we will never negate our own standing; we’ll strengthen it.

Merit and the Ladder of Learning

So if two, or all three job options apply to you, choose your best stance, the one where you will start to concentrate your efforts. My coaching for you, is to focus on that context of merit within your available choices.

Merit is the quality of being particularly good or worthy of your efforts. Taking action where the merit is, becomes the best way we leave the overwhelm, hand-wringing, and frustration of having no agenda behind us.

Those who are starting to emerge as leaders within the Occupy Wall Street movement have recognized this: Public protest is largely a complaint, albeit one which has gotten chronic and cries to be better heard. But complaining only goes so far, and it irritates others along the way, diluting the message. To achieve any resolution we look to its root word, solution, and the leaders emerging have clearer voices: They are starting to articulate courses of definitive action beyond mere protest.

Realistically, you can only do your best work in one option at a time. [In Managing with Aloha we define ‘best work’ as the work of Ho‘ohana intention.]

When we speak of moving forward, and making progress from where you are to where you can be, I see the “Job of Any Merit” options as a kind of ladder you climb, where you can eventually skim the cream of Maslow’s Pyramid up at the top (achieving self-actualization; see the pyramid graphic below).

[In the archives: Consider reviewing Strengths, Values, and that Pyramid. I think Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” is a helpful way of looking at this too, further framing the conversation with your specific strengths and values.]

Let’s say you have an idea. You want to develop that idea in your near future, for it could be the idea that will generate a new income stream for you:

Option 1 is included in your plan because you want an insider’s view of the industry your idea relates to. You want the ‘real job/real work’ learning which exists there now in the present day, versus the academic learning you’ve done in school, or via books and such. In other words, why reinvent the wheel when it’s a perfectly decent, good wheel now? — start with it as savvy foundation, then improve upon it. Make it relevant to your idea, and tap into the advantages of workplace culture, and the leverage of industry networks while you’re there. I wrote Business Thinking with Aloha for this person in particular, to give them a framework for putting their learning into, versus taking the scattershot/happenstance approach.

Intentional learning like this, whether from an industry-related job or by another means, helps you make important decisions about your future. You make those decisions based on a purpose which evolves (that purpose was probably driving your idea in the first place) but mostly because you have a steadily increasing bank of knowledge about it — you have more clarity. As we prefer saying in Managing with Aloha’s Alaka‘i style of managing, we don’t make decisions impulsively, we go about finding them: Can you see with your ears?

Turn intentional learning into a deliberate habit, and it becomes a skill of acquired wisdom: It is skills mastery at its finest.

You bring this skill with you as you proceed up the learning ladder toward options 2 or 3. As a reminder, option 2 was creating your own job – no employer or other middleman is necessary. Option 3 was creating better jobs and more jobs. Let’s slightly re-phrase those two options in terms of your idea:

Ideas are what will push you up the learning ladder, and up the pyramid of your own needs.

There might be several paths you can take while you evaluate the merits of option 2, which was creating your own jobs, or collection of jobs, via entrepreneurship, freelancing, novel partnerships or other means.

You sort out option 2 to develop additional income streams for yourself, each of which starts with another one of your ideas. “This one relates to outsourcing a service I can provide… this one relates to selling a product I’ve created” this one relates to a new relationship I’ve been cultivating with a possible partner”” etc. You begin to think about doing more creative work beyond anyone else’s definition of ‘job’ and in effect, you begin to break away from anyone else having to do it for you (that ‘middleman‘ I’ve referred to). In Managing with Aloha, this ongoing, lifetime sensibility with work creation, and with lifelong learning, is the value immersion of Ho‘ohana and ‘Imi ola.

As I’ve explained, you may be in the Option 3 effort for yourself at first — for your own job improvement, or to help your own team, department, division or company: You’ll radiate your efforts by building on your successes and increasing both your advantages and your leverage — much like the ripples in a pond, you widen your embrace of partnerships, because now you can. In Managing with Aloha this is the “Language of we” in Kākou, the teaming synergies of Lōkahi, and the community outreach of ‘Ohana and Mālama.

[If you are new to Talking Story, all those Hawaiian value indexes are listed in the right column of the blog.]

This learning ladder is our real Knowledge Economy

This ‘ladder of learning’ connected to the work we actively produce for income, is how I see the practical how-to sensibility of what many scholars, economists, anthropologists and assorted authors have called ‘the knowledge economy.’

YOUR knowledge leverages YOUR ideas too.

From Wikipedia:
The knowledge economy is a term that refers either to an economy of knowledge focused on the production and management of knowledge in the frame of economic constraints, or to a knowledge-based economy. In the second meaning, more frequently used, it refers to the use of knowledge technologies (such as knowledge engineering and knowledge management) to produce economic benefits as well as job creation. The essential difference is that in a knowledge economy, knowledge is a product, while in a knowledge-based economy, knowledge is a tool.

As a coach and a manager, I instinctively get drawn to that last phrase, that knowledge is a tool. Further, it’s a tool we all can have if only we choose to learn actively and not passively.

I’ve mentioned Richard Florida (as author of The Great Reset, my review is here), because I’ve been studying his economic views connected to the urban movement, wherein we work toward applying more ‘metro benefits’ to the suburban sprawl created before the housing crisis imploded, as we’re now realizing it would inevitably do — this study is currently on my own ladder of learning, relevant to an idea I have, which is connected to the work I do.

Florida is best known however, for his writing and speaking on the “creative class.” (Overview on his website.) He says that “this creative class is found in a variety of fields, from engineering to theater, biotech to education, architecture to small business” yet in his current writing he is expanding this more broadly. I think he runs into the same challenge I’d mentioned in regard to entrepreneurship: It’s far too easy for people to quickly say, “I’m not creative, that’s not me.”

As I see it, we’ve all got to dig deeper, give ourselves more credit, and understand just how creative we are, and can always be. Creativity plays out one idea at a time, and you do have ideas, I know you do.

Use the context of merit in worthwhile work to take your idea up the learning ladder. I hope this posting has helped you see your way forward.

Our big ideas don’t have to change the world.
They just have to move it along.
Expect more from your own energies.
— KÄ“ia lā ~ What Your Big Ideas Do Best

Are you able to discount your own certainty?

December 7, 2010 by Rosa Say

For that is what it takes to be open-minded —and being open-minded is but the start of possibility in your bigger and better thinking, thinking your brain is fully capable of.

Voltaire said,

“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd position.”

Meet Dr. David Eagleman, neuroscientist (Link to PopTech2010 Video). I love speakers who can communicate as eloquently as Dr. Eagleman. Trust me, he’s a scientist you’ll enjoy listening to!

“90% of the universe is what we call ‘dark matter.’ That’s a lot to sweep under the rug!”
— Dr. David Eagleman

In his presentation, Dr. Eagleman presents possibilianism:

At 13:52: Possibilianism is “the act of exploration of new ideas and a comfort with the scientific temperment of creativity and holding multiple hypotheses in mind… It’s not that anything goes; anything goes at first, and then we import the tools of science to rule out parts of the possibility space.”

What’s cool, is that “…possibilianism picks up where the toolbox of science leaves out; it’s where we no longer have tools to address it [the magnitude of all we don’t yet know.]”

So why should you bother with this video at all? (It will explain Possibilianism in about 20 minutes.)

In the crush of the holiday season the year will turn, and like it or not, welcome it or not, we will all do a great deal of thinking about ourselves and the world we live in. I urge you to frame your thinking within greater possibility. Give yourself a gift, and let your growth in.

In his talk, Dr. Eagleman will explain that we must seek comfort with multiple narratives.

“This is not just a plea for simple open-mindedness, but for an act of exploration of new ideas. …go back into your world, and live a life free of dogma, and full of awe and wonder. See if you can celebrate possibility, and praise uncertainty.”

This is something you have to work at, because old conditioning can fight you:

At 6:18: You don’t need to be an anthropologist to recognize that our nervous systems absorb whatever our culture pours into us” it is not coincidence that there isn’t a blossoming of Islam in Springfield Ohio, and there isn’t a blossoming Protestantism in Mecca, because we are products of our culture; we accept whatever is poured into us, right? If there was one truth, you’d expect it would spread everywhere evenly, but the data doesn’t support that”

Merry Christmas my friends. However your faith got you where you are today, I’m celebrating the possibility of where we all have yet to go in both heart and mind.

Many thanks to Liz Danzico for introducing me to David Eagleman.

Wonder. To have an inner capacity that can always make room for awe and wonder is such a blessing. To return to child-like innocence and acceptance, to be rendered speechless, and have it feel good and right, never helpless. To not have all the answers but feel it is perfectly fine not to, to just have wonder.

How is wonder an Aloha Virtue for you?

What Your Big Ideas Do Best

February 16, 2010 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Your big ideas are kÄ“ia lā

Here’s a leadership thought I’ve been kicking around in my self-talk with the old muse lately, and I’d like to get it out as a conversational talk-story if it gets you thinking too.

In short, it goes like this:

Our big ideas don’t have to change the world.
They just have to move it along.

I think that we often saddle our ideas with unreasonable expectations, feeling that an idea isn’t that great (and it can’t be a leadership idea) unless it’s going to change the world somehow.

That’s like saying that everything in our world at the moment isn’t good enough, and so everything has to change. We know that’s not true. There is good we want to be constant, and long lasting: We actually prefer it doesn’t change much at all. There are many things we want to remain simple and uncomplicated, and the prospect of change can mean an evolutionary variation we aren’t prepared to handle yet (or simply have no desire for).

Keep your expectations about ENERGY

And that goes for your ideas too. They are probably bigger than you are giving them credit for, and you need to go all-in with them instead of delaying them, or dismissing them too soon.

What your biggest ideas do best, is become great for today [kÄ“ia lā is about today, the here and now.]

Let’s connect the Alaka‘i dots…

What we’ve said about leading, is that it is a verb all managers do (you too).

We’ve said that leading creates energy: It’s the 30 that gets us the other 70 (and the no.2 in our Take 5 game-changing). The managing we will then do, is to channel that energy we have created in the best possible way, bringing it to optimal usefulness.

Optimal usefulness is probably way more important to us today than tomorrow. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, we can only guess. However we do know what is happening all around us today; today we can work with.

Make movement your best goal

Creating energy doesn’t necessarily mean we have to change the world.

Creating energy means we have to stimulate movement of some kind, so that we simply get things moving enough to get momentum going, momentum which keeps us inspired, and actively engaged with the good work we do today, letting tomorrow take care of itself.

For after all, we’re here today, living and working with our Aloha in the here and now. Why not enjoy our energy creation for today, with more presence and Ho‘ohana intention?

And you know how we’ve been talking story about Aloha lately, and how love is a strengthener for us? We can connect this thought:

Going all in TODAY is loving something (your idea).
Going all in TODAY is being passionate about your idea gone big.
Going all in TODAY is doing everything on-purpose, as idea-critical.

When you love a leading idea deeply enough,
where you concentrate on it fully with a sense of urgency,
and you succeed in “moving it along”
you’ll be strengthening it.

As you strengthen it,
you’ll be preparing yourself a whole lot better for tomorrow.

You’ll have fed off your own leadership energy.
The ‘something’ gone big might just be you!

So give your ideas a break, and stop expecting them to be change-the-world big.
Ho‘o [make something happen] instead. Move it along.

Be a Ho‘ohana mover and Aloha lover; someone who works with full intention kÄ“ia lā (today).

That will be very cool.

Your big ideas will be kÄ“ia lā

If we all do this, bring full intention to handling our today, we’ll be getting stronger together. We’ll get strong enough to love tomorrow a whole lot more when the time comes, and whatever tomorrow brings with it.

And you know what? That might change us.

Cross-posted: A slightly shorter version of this article appears on Say “Alaka‘i” at The Honolulu Advertiser today: This one includes a few more connections to some additional discussions we have had here on Talking Story.