The Eureka myth holds that a sudden flash of insight drives commercial and scientific innovation. It’s got lots of dramatic appeal, and is well-meaning enough, but it’s wrong. Steven Johnson covers this in a fun TED talk, Where Good Ideas Come From. 
So we think that we’re thunderstruck by genius when we’re patiently triangulating a signal. Toiling away in the lab brings home the data, but it makes sense that cross-pollination happens at conference tables or over drinks. 
This isn’t a new idea. James Burke, among others, posited that an information web binds us together.
Even so, stories about lone, brilliant geniuses have a lot of staying power.
Chance favors the connected mind
That’s the best quote from Johnson’s talk; it’s hopeful and plausible.
It’s also a reminder of the limits of knowledge, and folk knowledge in particular. That we fail to learn from the past is a given. But we have a hard time seeing the present. 
Characterizing innovation as a lone, deterministic pursuit may be romantic, but it’s divorced from reality. Stumbling is involved. Accidents, blind-alleys, and dumb luck are as much a part of this process as the clever scientist and his army of pipettes. And booze.
Technology Tangent
Kevin Kelly tends toward deep, long-form stuff, but he recently wrote a quick, punchy article in the New York Times. It’s stocked with helpful advice when approaching new technologies 
:
- Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused. Look for its costs.
- Technologies improve so fast you should postpone getting anything you need until the last second. Get comfortable with the fact that anything you buy is already obsolete.
- Before you can master a device, program or invention, it will be superseded; you will always be a beginner. Get good at it.
- Be suspicious of any technology that requires walls. If you can fix it, modify it or hack it yourself, that is a good sign.
- The proper response to a stupid technology is to make a better one, just as the proper response to a stupid idea is not to outlaw it but to replace it with a better idea.
- Every technology is biased by its embedded defaults: what does it assume?
- Nobody has any idea of what a new invention will really be good for. The crucial question is, what happens when everyone has one?
- The older the technology, the more likely it will continue to be useful.
- Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.
Johnson’s talk and Kelly’s piece dovetail nicely. Advances don’t happen in isolation; they are part of an interesting social stew. To function effectively, we have to know what tools we’re using and use them well. Snap the Legos together.
Slip in Cory Doctorow‘s musings about intellectual property, while we’re at it. We live in a world with political and legal traditions that need an upgrade. Common knowledge is out of date, too. Let’s get on this. The parts are in the box and there are plenty of shapes to choose from.
This is certainly not a road-map; it’s more of a cocktail napkin sketch. It’s simplistic, glib, and quite incomplete. I have the thinnest sliver of knowledge – and plenty of misconceptions – on my side. What influences would would you add?
Anyway, it’s fun to think about 
and may yet be useful. If we’re willing to accept that we’re playing with Legos, some interesting stuff may emerge.
Footnotes
The talk breezes by in 18 minutes, so give it a watch. Or just listen. it’s worth it. Where Good Ideas Come From, by Steven Johnson.
The saying goes: Science runs on caffeine and alcohol.
And whatever mental model we have for How Things Work is quite incomplete. And inaccurate anyway. It’s something to keep in mind when we’re full of ourselves.
The emphasis is mine. Excerpt from Achieving Techno-Literacy by Kevin Kelly in the New York Times on September 16, 2010.
It staves off existential terror and/or ennui nicely.
