Karin Jesuis

(Joubert-Rheeder)
UM58587BBU67597

Organizational Development

Seminar International Development

Where Good Ideas Come From
Part fulfillment of Masters in Business Management

ATLANTIC INTERNATIONAL UNIVERISITY

APRIL 2019

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Table of Contents
Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3
Synopsis: Where good ideas come from – Steven Johnson ..................................................... 3
1. The Adjacent Possible ............................................................................................................4
2. Liquid Networks .....................................................................................................................5
3. The Slow Hunch .....................................................................................................................6
4. Serendipity ............................................................................................................................7
5. Error ......................................................................................................................................8
6. Exaptation .............................................................................................................................8
7. Platforms ...............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 10
The Fourth Quadrant ................................................................................................................... 10
Discussion of topics within the book .................................................................................... 13
Innovation and Evolution .................................................................................................................. 13
Time is the factor that allows ideas to evolve, rarely through sudden leaps ................................. 13
Keystone Species to Innovation are Platforms................................................................................. 13
Networks are the critical base for Innovation and Evolution .......................................................... 13
Competition and Collaboration are the building blocks of innovation ........................................... 13
Fluctuation between order and no regard for convention is the breeding ground for Innovative
Networks ............................................................................................................................................ 14
Serendipity – making new ideas/discoveries by chance .................................................................. 14
Sometimes, Innovation and Evolution depends on Error ................................................................ 14
New Behaviours ................................................................................................................................. 15
Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 15
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 17

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Introduction
The clash between the coral and the surf, that is the observation that sparked one of the most
debatable topics of the last two centuries, Charles Darwin (Darvin, 1859) and Keeling Islands.
Why is there a flourish of life in one place and desolation in another not far away? Darwin’s
Paradox, diversity in a desert.

The Kleiber law, (100 years after Darwin’s book) negative quarter power scaling, that states the
bigger the biological entity is the slower in metabolism was revisited by West, (70 years after
Kleiber) President of Sante Fe university up unitl 2009. The West Law discovered that the
quarter power was positive when it came to creativity/innovation and not negative as in the
Kleiber Law.1 This is called superlinear scaling.2

The 10/10 rule, from conception to application and mass consumer usages, takes 10 years for
technology, this was until the invention of YouTube which changed this rule from 10/10 to 1/1.

Where good ideas come from by Stephen Johnson (Johnson, 2010)is a book about the space
where innovation flourishes. Both the web and the city has proven to be places of innovation.
The web and big cities seem to be the melting pot where new ideas are created, diffused and
adopted.

The millions of small architects of the coral reef in Darwin’s observations created the
environment for biological innovation to flourish. But to make this observation also took many
parts, a ship, a notebook, a coral reef, etc. The deduction is that our thoughts SHAPE the space
we inhabit. Our SPACE returns the shape of our thoughts. Johnson argues that shared properties
and patterns recur again and again in an unusually fertile environment that yields innovation. The
more we embrace these patterns in all spheres in our lives the more we will tap into our capacity
for innovative thinking. These patterns are not exclusive to human behavior but to natural
science too. (Poincaré, 1904)

Johnson has identified seven patterns that creates an innovative environment, these form the
basis of this book.

Synopsis: Where good ideas come from – Steven Johnson

1 Kleiber's law, named after Max Kleiber for his biology work in the early 1930s, is the
observation that, for the vast majority of animals, an animal's metabolic rate scales to
the ¾ power of the animal's mass.

2Superlinear scaling in cities, which appears in sociological quantities such as

economic productivity and creative output relative to urban population size, has been
observed but not been given a satisfactory theoretical explanation. September, 2008

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The one maxim that runs through this book is that; we are better serve with more innovation by
connecting ideas than protecting them.

1. The Adjacent Possible

The adjacent possible is the pattern of small steps of making an advance is the dominant pattern
for innovation. A few innovations came about with big leaps (e.g. YouTube) but most
innovations are the accumulation of incremental advances, which each on in itself creates a new
environment for more possibilities.

Tarnier created the first baby incubator after visiting the Paris Zoo. The mortality rate of new
borns dropped from 66% to 37% using this incubator where babies were warmed by hot water
bottles. The incubator has been developed into a sophisticated apparatus but it does not work in
developing countries because of the high costs. MIT Professor Timothy Prestero, founder of
Design that Matters, (Prestero, n.d.) visiting Indonesia, found that the incubators were all out of
order, as was the case with most medical equipment donated from developed countries to
developing countries because of high costs of maintenance and parts, inability to read the
English maintenance and repair manuals. The team looked at what was already available and
working in these countries, motor cars! So, they designed an incubator made from motor vehicle
parts. NeoNurture was born.

The primordial soup existed before all life on earth, the combination of different
elements/particles creates oxygen, water and so forth. The scientist, Stuart Kauffman named
these first order combinations “the adjacent possible” This phrase captures the both the
limitations and the vastness off innovation. Change is possible and unlimited but some change
falls outside certain limitations. The first order changes from the primordial soup is quite
different from the sunflower, humans and other life forms that we now know, but they were the
adjacent possible that were the fore runner of life as we know it. This means that the world has
the capacity to have extraordinary change at any moment, but only certain changes will happen.

If the inventors of YouTube had tried it 10 years earlier, it would have been a failure as the
adjacent possible was not yet available for the Web, that of sharing videos.

The boundaries of the adjacent possible expands with each new exploration, this sets off more
possibilities of the possible adjacent. We can think of evolution as the continual exploration of
the adjacent impossible.

Darwin’s paradox can be explained through the concept of adjacent possible, so many life forms
exist in a small place within an environment that lacks the same diversity.

What we found in our modern era of global communication is that a scientist/inventor will come
up with an idea and find that 3 other people has come up independently with the same idea – this
is called “the multiple”.

Innovative environments make it easier to explore the adjacent possible.

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 2. Liquid Networks

What is an idea? How is it formed? What do we call the moment? We have a breakthrough, an a-
ha moment, eureka! a flash, a spark and many more words to describe. According to Johnson
none of these really describes what an idea is. He postulates that and idea is a NETWORK. An
idea is the network of cells in the brain exploring the adjacent possibility of the idea in the brain.
Ideas in the neural network has two preconditions, firstly the vast number of neuron connections.
The adult human brain has 100 trillion distinct neural connections, whereas the web has 40
billion connections. Secondly; the network has to be PLASTIC, that means pliable and ready to
adopt new configurations. It does not matter how dense the connections are but if it cannot make
new configurations or adapt then innovation will not happen. The author firmly believes that
connections equals wisdom.

Our life is carbon based, this is because of the unique properties of the carbon molecule. Carbon
has four valence electrons which gives it the unique ability to form connections with other atoms
and other carbon atoms. The combinational power of carbon makes it the building block of life
as we know it. Carbon is the CONNECTOR of life; without its generative properties, the
primordial soup would have stayed the soup. The four valence electrons explored the LIQUID
NETWORKS for the adjacent possibility until it found a stable connection that formed the first
organism.

The H20 is another exceptional molecule with properties that makes the liquid water critical to
sustain life on earth. The hydrogen bonds are about 10 times stronger than the bonds in other
liquids, this gives water properties; it can resist high temperatures before it changes into another
state like gas or solid. In the first days of the existence of earth the oceans would have boiled
away if not for this property. Water is also the ultimate dissolver of things, this combination with
also its characteristic of solubility makes water adept for creating new networks of elements in
unpredictable ways.

Given the above we now find that the distinctive characteristics of capacity to make connections
and a “randomized environment” that encourages many collisions for creating new connections
gave the innovative machine of earth the ability to create life.

Innovative systems tend to hover “on the edge of chaos” 3, he uses as example the different
phases of matter – gas, liquid, solids. In gas state the molecules are in high state of chaos,
connections falling apart quickly. Then in solids it is the opposite, too much stability, this results
in connections incapable of adapting. Liquid networks create an environment where the adjacent
possible can be optimally explored.

MIT’s building 20 and Microsoft’s building 99 is examples of the principle of fluidity of water
being replicated to stimulate an innovative environment.

3 Computer scientist Christopher Langton

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The Renaissance was the result of the northern Italian cities that were connected but still
independent, there was an information flow between them, information overspill. Organizations
can present the same culture as water, they can be rigid with little room for innovative thoughts,
too chaotic for connections to be made or in a liquid state which sets the scene for connections to
be made often and pushing the edge of chaos. According to the author meetings can be the
ground for innovation or not.

When connections are made, it is not a given that it would lead to innovation.

3. The Slow Hunch

The discussion in this chapter starts of recalling the famous Phoenix memo where FBI agent
Williams send a memo that Osama Bin Laden is sending students to flight schools in the USA
and that this might be a thread. The memo was dismissed by various other agent which did not
act on the information. It was said that the memo on its own could not have given the FBI the
necessary information to prevent the 9/11 attacks. This is true but if the Phoenix memo was
linked to other memos linking the same type of information the history of the world would’ve
looked different. Williams had a hunch.

One month after the Williams memo Zacarias J Moussaoui started flight lessons at the Pan Am
Flight Academy. His instructors and fellow students were suspicious of him as he paid his tuition
fees in cash and in full, he wanted to know about doors and communications protocols although
he said that he does not want a fly a real plane. He was arrested by the FBI on immigration
violations. An application to search the files on his laptop was dismissed on the grounds that the
evidence was too ‘shaky”. If these two hunches collided, it would have given probable cause to
search the laptop and then the FBI would have found direct connections between 11 other
terrorists. Liquid networks let these hunches connect.

Williams had a slow hunch, it developed over a long period of time with investigation and
observations, where the flight school agents had a gut hunch, the quick hunches are usually snap
judgements and that is it – they are judgements. Innovation and new ideas are more than this, it is
thinking of something that no one has thought of until now.

Slow hunches have challenges, one needs to keep the slow hunch alive in a sea of neurons
bombarded with other information. The hunch needs to be kept “alive” through pondering,
observation and research. Part of the cultivation of a slow hunch is to write everything down.

Locke devised a Common Place Book with a method for indexing, other contemporaries had the
same habit; Bacon and Bell.

A little “instruction” booklet was published in the previous century which was the basis of the
Common Place Book, this led Tim Berners-Lee to feed his hunch to organize information to be
readily accessible for people. The World Wide Web was born.

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Slow hunches which are nurtured leads to innovation and new ideas. This is incremental
innovation, knowledge is shared, the adjacent possible is explored to result in innovation, new
products, services, ideas. The liquid networks facilitate this best.

4. Serendipity
Biologically/neurotically a thought/hunch is simply cells in the brain firing in an organized
pattern and for a hunch to become a concrete concept it has to be connected to other ideas. This
requires and environment where new connections can be made, not only in the brain but also
socially and culturally.

The definition of SERENDIPITY:

“noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
"a fortunate stroke of serendipity"
synonyms: chance, happy chance, accident, happy accident, fluke;

Dreams have been the topic of much research in the role they play in innovation. We know that
in REM sleep cycle acetylcholine-releasing cells trigger the brain stem to fire indiscriminately,
thus putting the brain in a chaos state with electricity surges all over the brain.

The German scientist Ullrich Wagner has proofed that dreams are fertile grounds for new
conceptual insights. After “sleeping on” a problem the students could solve it quicker.

Dmitri Medeleev created the Table of Elements after he had a dream that the table could be
ordered according to the weight of the atoms. Nobel laureate John Carew Eccles also conceived
his theory of synaptic inhibitory action after a dream.

Robert Thatcher in 2007 studied the phase-locking and chaos (white noise) cycles of the brain,
he found that the more chaotic brain is the smarter brain.

The water flea Daphinia reproduce asexually, all are female fleas, in time of prosperity but when
the environment gets hostile some fleas switch to males and reproduction is through sex. This is
called heterogamy. When times are tough one needs to bring in innovation, the male/female
reproduction serves this purpose.

Serendipity is about random encounters that make sense to you, it has to be meaningful.
Serendipity needs something that can anchor the connections and discoveries, the environment
needs to support his, how does one create such an environment? The author suggests many ways,
taking long walks, reading vacations (read what is not in connection with your day to day work),
meditation and vacations to new places. The serendipitous connections should be scaled to all
areas of your life, your mind, work and the networks with society at large.

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Does social media limit serendipity? Are we group thinking? Everything we read is already
vetted and grouped? In modern times the “walls” have gone up to limit the share of information
and ideas. It is called, patents, trade secrets and intellectual property, but the argument is that this
will lead to more innovation, as this modus operandi allows the inventor to make lots of money
from their invention, this in turn will motivate others to find innovative ideas that will bring
financial prosperity. These closed systems limit serendipity, some companies which use to
follow the close door policy have started to embrace open innovative practices. They are to
mention a few; IBM, Proctor & Gamble and NIKE.

5. Error
When the story of the a-ha moment is told, it follows steps of positive advancement, but is that
the case? Lee de Forest who invented the first audio amplifier for radios got it wrong, but that
lead to his success when he relooked the idea. He thought that he needed gas in the tubes but
vacuum works better, he thought that it was the electromagnetic waves from the spark that
influence the candle flame but it was the sound waves from the spark that condensed the flame
making it hotter.

Sometimes it is mistakes but sometimes it is successes. New eyes to the problem – interactions
with others – brings perspective/innovative thoughts which turns the mistake into an
observation. Liquid networks facilitate new discussions and observations.

The author cites many errors that lead to inventions such as the pacemaker for heart
regulation. (Wilson Greatbatch) The principle is that error must be transformed into insight.

There has to be a balance between error and being right for any innovation to occur.

In recent studies is came to light that when parents pass their DNA onto their offspring,
included is about 150 mutations. This is all part of the method to preserve the specie and
survival.

6. Exaptation
The working definition is the adaptation from another domain is applied to a different domain.
This is external adaptation. An example that the author gives is Gutenberg that adapted the
wine press for a printing press.

Gutenberg did not start from scratch but used already designed and applied products and
constructed it into his printing press. He modified some elements, like using lead for the
lettering. This helped him to produce Bibles printed in mass.

Exaptation is a complimentary action to the adjacent possible, for example the web that we
know today was an exaptation from a military backup phone system and a system for academic

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information sharing. When this concept is applied to cities if follows that bigger cities has more
people, more diverse industries, from this follows that there are more instances to observe
how other people and industries operate which increases the possibilities of observing other
people at work/life.

From studies, it shown that people with a wider network of people with different backgrounds,
education and industries are more successful when it comes to innovation and new ideas. People
with such wide networks also acts as bridges in organizations, connecting groups. They can also
use solutions from another place to apply to their own situation.

In this instance Apple is a different example, it rarely interacts with other organizations and their
leaders don’t network. Apple has a method of letting all the people from all the disciplines on the
project work together from the start. The project may start off with many challenges but this
method also ensures a broad range of input. There might be delays in the beginning but clarity is
guaranteed as the project proceeds.

The town hall meetings, coffee shops gave people the opportunity to mingle and make
connections; today the local coffee shop and the world-wide-web plays the same role. This liquid
network gives serendipity to people to connect with the adjacent possible.

7. Platforms
When we talk about a platform in the context of innovation, it represents an innovation that
produces many more innovations. Examples of platforms in nature is a beaver dam. The dam
provides and ecosystem for many other animals like fish and birds. On the technology side GPS
was an invention to locate the position of submarines, this is now expanded to assist motorist to
find a location and Twitter to attach location to tweets. Twitter itself is a platform and
exaptation: it is a mixture between existing platforms of SMS and phone apps. Twitter made a
crucial decision to open source their platform thus creating a cooperative advantage. Their end
users came up with the @ and # handles.

Darwin realized that the Keeling Islands was a platform created by the coral colonies. The
mounds and plates of the coral reef creates habitat for millions of other organisms. Coral reefs
have an immense diversity of living creatures residing within it.

Darwin’s paradox includes the concept of a keystone species that an organism creates a platform
so as to form a rich and diverse area in an otherwise desolate environment. This specie has a
disproportionate impact on the environment. Later scientists came up with the concept of
ecosystem engineers. Where the platform is built by one organism to the benefit of a complete
diverse ecosystem. So, the ecosystem engineers/platform builders, don’t only open the door to
the adjacent possible they create a whole new floor. Platforms are often built on stacks of other
platforms.

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Most notable innovation in the platform environment is the Sputnik launch and the GPS system
that it spawned. Originally the scientists (Guier and Weinffenbach) only wanted to follow the
Sputnik, but then they realized if the use the Doppler Effect (Austrian physicist Christian
Doppler) they could calculate the speed that the Sputnik was traveling through space. A few
months later they had a clear picture of the orbit of Sputnik. From this McCure, working on a
project for the navy realized that the method could be used to pinpoint the location of a
submarine. The location of the submarine is very important when it comes to launching
torpedoes/missiles. The trajectory of the missile or torpedo can be calculated. Ronald Reagan
declared this technology as open for the common good.

In the online world, Twitter is one of the most successful uses of stacked platforms. It started off
as an app telling your friends what you had for dinner but today it is used in political campaigns,
stock market information and social information. The most innovative aspect is that the Twitter
users are active in developing the platforms, e.g. # tag and @.

Brent Constantz created coral reefs by depositing train carts in the ocean creating the ideal
environment for biological species to find a suitable home. He went on to develop green cement,
which uses CO2 as growth medium.

Conclusion
The Fourth Quadrant

Willis Carrier was a 25 year old electrical engineer, at the Buffalo Forge Company, which
specialization was in mechanical heating, when he was asked by his bosses to help Sackett-
Wilhelm Printing company with the moisture content in their air. Too much moisture in the air
has negative effects on printing and follows that losses are incurred in the printing business. The
project was to decrease the humidity in the air.

Innovation came as a flash when he watched a fog rolling into the train station. He built a
machine where cool water ran through coils, thus cooling the air. He perfected the frontrunner of
the modern-day Air Conditioner. He started his own company and became a very rich person.

Looking at all the above patterns such as the liquid networks, platforms, exaptation, etc. Carrier
is not the norm for innovation. How do we explain a solitary scientist, driven by a big paycheck
with no liquid networks, no errors that gives inspiration, that hits on a flash of innovation?
(Beveridge, 1957)

The author created a diagram consisting of 4 quadrants, in which all innovations from Gutenberg
printing press to the World Wide Web can be plotted.

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Where good ideas come from p. 219

Innovation that involves a small, coordinated team or a solo entrepreneur or inventor can be
classified as an INDIVIDUAL. A NETWORK can be classified as all previous
innovations/inventions that collectively evolved through distributed processes, with many
groups/people working on the same problem. Inventors who has a financial goal for their
innovation, through selling their products/services can be classified as the MARKET. The
innovators who believe that ideas should be freely available to all can be classified as NON-
MARKET
The quadrants correlate as follows: Q1 – private corporation of solo entrepreneur; Q2 – many
private firms that interact; Q3 – amateurs that shares their ideas freely; Q4 – opensource or
academic environments where ideas are built upon, ideas are re-imagined and people work in
collaboration within networks.

By using this classification system, we can map which Quadrant is the most dominant when it
comes to innovation. Below is diagram of inventions of the last two centuries.

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Where good ideas come from p. 229

The 4th Q shows to be the platform that is the fertile ground for innovation and good ideas. Q4’s
innovation strength has also been accelerated by the increased flow in information and academic
research.

When people want to protect their ideas, they create what economists define as “efficient
markets” The big payday is the goal. The systems of copy right, patents, trademarks and many
more, are created to stop the spread of good/new ideas. In the 4th Q all the patterns of innovation
are present – liquid networks, slow hunches, serendipity, exaptation and platforms.
How do we create the 4th Quadrant in our lives and organizations? How do we incorporate the
patterns of innovation into our lives? A stroll in nature, focus on your hunches, make mistakes,
frequent liquid networks, let others build on your ideas, so they can re-imagine it, be open to
change.

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Discussion of topics within the book
Innovation and Evolution
Where good ideas come from postulates the following: discoveries often come from slow
hunches, they evolve through connecting in liquid networks where opportunities for
serendipitous connections exist. These ideas/hunches mature over time to become Great Ideas
and Concepts. Steven Johnson identify 7 patterns that are the driving forces/environments of
innovation.

Evolution starts with the adjacent possible. This means that evolution starts with what is possible
at that given moment. Carbon atoms started to group in different ways, this later became our
earth with life on it as we know it now. With each new carbon connection came new
possibilities. Humans are the result of these combinations. For this to happen connections have to
be generated, possible to duplicate and it should work. Advances that is beyond the adjacent
possible is rare as maybe the environment is not yet ready for the innovation. YouTube would
have been a failure in the early 1990, as the speed of the internet was too slow to accommodate
the functions of YouTube. Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestly could only isolate oxygen
once the gaseous nature of air was understood. They discovered it 2 years apart, not knowing
about one another.

Time is the factor that allows ideas to evolve, rarely through sudden leaps
Sometimes it seems that great ideas came to fruition is a short time, but when one studies their
development, the opposite is proofed. They develop over time, through different patterns to
maturity. Tim Berners-Lee had the idea of the internet for more than a decade.

Keystone Species to Innovation are Platforms

The term keystone specie is used for a specie that has a disproportioned impact on the
environment/ecosystem. They are the engineers (ecosystem engineers) that create an
environment for other organism, they build the platforms needed for other species to flourish and
innovate. E.g. is a beaver dam, think of all life that is there because of the dam.

These platforms accelerate innovation through the adjacent possible. One example of this is the
GPS navigation system. One platform usually serves as the basis for another platform to be built
upon, such examples are Twitter and Facebook.

Networks are the critical base for Innovation and Evolution

As life on earth started out with carbon atoms clustering so as humans begin to cluster in
communities they started to share their own ideas and is exposed to other people’s ideas. If there
are no connections, ideas cannot spread. A good example is of a study that showed that most
discoveries are not made under the microscope but in the discussion rooms.

Competition and Collaboration are the building blocks of innovation

If the goal is to create financial gain from your new idea, structures are in place to protect your
idea, but these very same structures limit collaboration, liquid networks, exaptation and the other
patterns of innovation. It follows that the very mechanism that should ensure innovation,

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prevents innovation from happening. These are efficient markets. Although inventors need to be
compensated, innovation is the goal. Ideas that are connecting through collaboration between
species/corporates/individuals is the stimulus for innovation.

Fluctuation between order and no regard for convention is the breeding ground for Innovative
Networks
If one uses the carbon connections that created/s life then another element is also necessary –
WATER. Water dissolves or erodes anything that is in its path, with this action new possibilities
are created, new adjacent possibles but the strong bonds between the Hydrogen atoms also keep
stability. This characteristic of a blend of stability and turbulence is perfect for the connections of
life. Evolution for creativity. Accidental discoveries are made when unplanned connections are
made; in biology, nature and business. This is creativity and chaos linked.

Neurologically new are ideas are formed in the same way. Ideas are a complex connection of
neurons; new ideas can only happen if there are new connections between neurons. Neurons can
fire out of sync, in a state of chaos or they are activated and synchronized by the same frequency.
In studies it was shown that brains that fire out of sync for longer is more creative, more smart.
The person is more intelligent.

Serendipity – making new ideas/discoveries by chance

Diversity is the host of serendipity, where diverse people/ideas/cultures meet, creativity starts
and many combinations of ideas are possible, especially new ideas. Shared interactions allow
ideas to spread, combine in new ways and circulate/re-imagine and re-use in random manner.

How do we facilitate this process? Using our brains to access information/ideas from different
areas. Working on different projects/ideas at the same time – then we get information overspill.
One project is enriched by the information/ideas from another project.

In a company where a network allows ideas to mature, spread and blend with other ideas is key
to innovation.

Sometimes, Innovation and Evolution depends on Error

Error has been the starting point of both evolution and innovation and can be seen as a good
thing, the prerequisite is that the error must bring wisdom/insight. If there is no error/mutation,
evolution would stagnate. Mutations which are caused by an “error” create new forms of life,
new business processes, new products or services; sometimes it is successful and sometimes it’s
not. An example is Penicillin: Andre Fleming by error had a sample of bacteria contaminated by
mould, then started to ponder what had killed the bacteria? Sometimes innovations need to
reinvent or reuse the past.

Exaptation is when a characteristic/idea that was developed for a certain purpose is now used for
an entirely new use. In the book – Where Good Ideas Come From – the example of bird feathers
is used. It was originally aimed at regulating temperature, but then it evolved for the flight of
birds. The internet was created for academic sharing of information, today it is used for almost
everything but academic information sharing.

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Other examples are Gutenberg’s printing press – he used an old invention of pressing grapes,
combined it with this knowledge of metallurgy and revolutionized the way people communicate.
Discarded in one platform can be the foundation of the new platform, the dead coral forms the
basis of the new reef’s ecosystem. Inner city rejuvenation projects – where old abandon
buildings become new urban subcultures.

New Behaviours
Tea and coffee changed the world in so many ways. Before alcohol was consumed as a beverage
during the day, this meant that people were drunk most of the day. Drinking tea and coffee – the
Coffeehouse invention – moved people away from alcohol, which is most a depressant, to drinks
that stimulate. The result: more thinking, then more critical thinking, involvement of topics that
are evolutionary, ideas that better the lives and environment, an evolution for the better – all this
by what we drink, creation of space for liquid networks. (Young, 2009)

The space of the Coffee House is also important, it created a space where people from different
backgrounds/disciplines/experiences to gather in one place to exchange ideas, merge ideas,
exchange information and merge it all into new ones. Different environments will facilitate or
enable innovation whether they are virtual, physical or biological, they all share similar patterns.
These patterns are completely different than the old thinking that innovation is a lightbulb
moment.

In recent studies4 it was concluded that new ideas do not mostly happen when people are alone,
they happen in meetings, around conference tables, places where people interact, exchange ideas,
share their thoughts and also discuss their mistakes. This is what is called a liquid network.

The space needs a critical factor of time, as ideas sometimes linger for decades before it comes to
maturity. A space where slow hunches can be developed, needs to be created.

In summary one can say: old ideas are being reused, recycled, upcycled in a new way, isolation
is not your friend but Google/colleagues/strangers are. You have to unlearn traditional ways of
looking how innovation and evolution happens.

Conclusion
The Adjacent possible makes Evolution and Innovation possible, the carbon atoms in the
primordial soup did not arrange themselves spontaneously into the complex structure of a red
rose or the hand that picks them. Carbon atoms had to form molecules, polymers, proteins, cells,
primitive organisms and to expand to complex organisms. This evolution and innovation happen
in the realm of adjacent possible, the realm of possible possibilities at one given moment.
Multiples – when different people make the same discovery at different times and places, but
almost simultaneously, this illustrates how the adjacent possible is limited by different
knowledge and existing parts.

4 https://blog.12min.com/the-brain-that-changes-itself-summary

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Great ideas that sometimes seems as Eureka moments have evolved over an extended period of
time, the slow hunch reached maturity.

The enabling structure for innovation is platforms, they create a whole new ecosystem for other
organisms/ideas to thrive. Platforms often stack upon one another to create a new platform.
“Ideas rise in crowds” 5 he was struggling with a mathematical equation6 and the answer came
when he went for a walk.

Large networks are the breeding ground for Innovation and Evolution, as different connections
facilitate new ideas and sharing of ideas. Studies has confirmed that individuals with broad social
networks outside their own organization are more creative.

Competition and Collaboration drives innovation equally. This can be seen from huge number
of inventions that falls within the 4th Quadrant. Products and Services such as X-Ray, WWW,
penicillin are examples of where the inventor did not profit.

In the mix of turbulence and stability of liquid networks, connections are made. These
connections lead to evolution of ideas and creativity. Centuries back, the German chemist
Kekulé 7dreamt of a mythological serpent, eating its own tail, from this dream he realized how
carbon atoms are formed in benzene. It seems that chaos and creativity is linked even on a
neurological level. Neuroscientists have confirmed that sleeping problems is beneficial in
creativity.

Random discoveries such as found in a chaotic or turbulent environment drive the serendipity
pattern. Connections made by “accident”. When people of different disciplines/backgrounds/life
experiences start to interact, creative collisions happen. The philosopher John Locke8 developed
a method of cross- referencing for content of a book. These books became the depositories for
hunches that needed maturing. In the organization, networks that allow ideas to develop to
maturity, this is the inspiration for innovation and creativity/inspiration. The world wide web
facilitates not only the exchange of ideas but hyperlinks take one straight to connections with
other disciplines.

5
https://eachonethrives.wordpress.com December 20, 2011
6
He was responsible for formulating the Poincaré conjecture, which was one of the most famous
unsolved mathematical problems until 2002 when it was solved by Grigori Perelman
7
Kekule is regarded as one of the principal founders of modern organic chemistry, the chemistry
of carbon-based compounds. In 1858 he showed that carbon can link with itself to form long
chains. In 1865 he reported his discovery of the benzene ring as the basis for another major
group of carbon molecules. August 16, 1988
8
John Locke first began maintaining a commonplace book in 1652, during his first year at
Oxford. Over the next decade he developed and refined an elaborate system for indexing the
book's content.

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Through out history evidence shows that some of the greatest innovations happen in
environments where error was present. When specie propagates, it is estimated that 150
mutations are carried forward, these random errors provide the building blocks of adaptation for
survival of the specie.
Recycling, re-using, up-cycling is the food of innovation, evolutionary biologists call this
phenomenon expatiation. This describe where something developed for a specific function is re-
used for something totally different.

Bibliography
Beveridge, W. I., 1957. The Art of Scientific Investigation. New York : CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform..
Darvin, C., 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. s.l.:s.n.
Johnson, S., 2010. Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation. New York:
Riverhead Books.
Poincaré, H., 1904. The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, the Value of Science,
Science and Method. s.l.:Unknown.
Prestero, T., n.d. www.designthatmatters.org. [Online]
Available at: https://www.designthatmatters.org
[Accessed 30 April 2019].
Young, J. W., 2009. A Technique for Producing Ideas: The simple, five-step formula anyone can
use to be more creative in business and in life!. New York: Independantly.

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