The cognitive psychologist Gary Klein proposed the triple path model to explain how we have insights. Furthermore, Klein systematically searched for hindrances and encouragements to having insight. It should be interesting to compare his findings with Steven Johnson's analysis of the conditions that make good ideas flourish. Good ideas need insights, and conditions for the success of one should promote the other. Let's find out.
As innovators, we build our future progress on our predecessors’ past achievements thanks to humankind’s unique capability of social learning, of sharing experiences and ideas. Today, we rely heavily on computers, databases, and the internet to facilitate and accelerate whatever we do. And that includes our social learning capabilities and our creative skills. Hence it’s high time to critically assess technology’s impact and to formulate our expectations: How do we employ technology to support our innovative endeavours? What do we demand? And what can we realistically hope for?
We have everything today that we need to shape tomorrow. All the ingredients for our future are available to us in the here and now. That is the very essence of progress: the future flows from the past, we shape it on the foundation of the past. We "only" need to find out how we can best combine the available ingredients to get the next task done. That's what we call progress. And we can make progress in different ways ...
Innovation deepens our knowledge and understanding of the world, it extends our reach and access to resources. More importantly, innovation expands the realm of what we can do with all our knowledge and resources: deliver new goods and products, bring forward new types of organisations and services, and in more general terms develop new ideas … Continue reading Exploring the adjacent possible – The origin of good ideas
As the old year draws to a close, the holiday season offers a much-needed break from everyday busy-ness to rest, to reflect, to put recent events into longer-term perspective. It's the time for racking and stacking and sorting the ideas that have accumulated, and to think ahead. To give my fuzzy observations an initial structure for some systematic follow-up, I've composed a preliminary reading list for the new year that I’m sharing here.
understanding innovation 