Regional sites:
Specialized sites:
In
Shen’s view, a key element is to allow innovative ideas to emerge from the
bottom up. “Creativity comes mainly from making seemingly random connections,”
he says, “so it’s much more of a serendipitous process than a regimented one,
and we need to create an environment that allows and even encourages serendipity.”
This involves recruiting people with diverse backgrounds who are well read on
many topics, and assembling them into even more diverse teams. “The
connections seem random, but as you take them further, you discover that they’re
meaningful and profound,” says Shen.
“That’s where I think creativity happens.” US science author Steven
Johnson’s new book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of
Innovation, codifies the benefits of this approach. Most great ideas, he writes,
first emerge half-baked and incomplete. Liquid networks – those with enough
population density to have many inputs, but open enough to allow information to
flow – allow partial ideas to meet and complete one another. Ideas, he writes,
need to collide.
| << Back to: Overview | Next: Execution is key >> |
