Good Ideas: The First Reviews

Where Good Ideas Come From doesn't officially hit the shelves until Tuesday, but a handful of reviews started running in the past few days.

• In Portland, where I will be speaking at the end of this week, The Oregonian said my "'long zoom' view of fertile idea-ecosystems is engaging, informative and, well, inspirational." (Though I was a bit too glib about new tech platforms like Twitter apparently.)

• The Economist calls Good Ideas "the grand synthesis" of my other six books, which I think is a compliment, assuming they don't think the other six books are awful. It's a joint review with Kevin Kelly's superb What Technology Wants, and if you like that particular cocktail, you should read this fun Wired conversation between Kevin and me. (And then buy tickets for our joint event at the New York Public Library.)

• In Seattle, where I will also be appearing this week, the Times runs a very nice review that ends with this paragraph: "Johnson's own interest stops him short of saying patents and copyrights should be thrown out altogether. People who create intellectual property, including books like this, need to be paid — an argument, writes Johnson, 'I am more than sympathetic toward.' No doubt that goes also for his publisher, Riverhead Books, which is owned by Penguin, which is owned by Pearson, a great corporation based in London." I will have more to say on this theme in the coming weeks, but suffice to say that there are multiple reasons why copyright and patent law shouldn't be thrown out altogether, most of which have nothing to do with my commercial interests, and the book discusses them at some length.

• It's behind a paywall, so you're just going to have to trust me on this, but the Sunday Times in the UK ran a review this morning that began by calling Good Ideas "an exhilarating, idea-thirsty book."

• Finally, last week's Publisher's Weekly ran a long interview with me that discussed Good Ideas, but also went into some detail about my thoughts on the future of digital books, and my frustrations with the forced limitations of today's e-book software.  

 

Comments

[Noah Fleming]

I'm lookIng forward to reading this soon.. Todd Statterson also mentioned the book recently, saying it was the best book he read in September.

Can't wait to check it out.

[Noah Fleming]

Todd Sattersen... not Statterson.

Sorry about that.. I blame iPad commenting :-)

[sex izle]

Thanks for the informative (and funny) talk last night at Politics & Prose!

[eric]

Hi Steven. I couldn't find a contact on you so I'm commenting here. I just listened to you on KPLU this last hour and you suggested that the eureka moment is all but a myth throughout the course of human innovation ('not only are eureka moments an exception to the rule but are nearly nonexistent'). My knee-jerk response would be "Have you ever met and artist!?". Artist's theories and projects are fueled by eureka moments and less so in the culmination of steady linear construction; artists are not drones in a hive, even if you metaphorically posit the hive as a work of art (bees are not self-aware e.g.). Recent studies have pointed to highly cognitive troubleshooting as counter-productive and limiting of the mind's ability to reason both in abstraction and in order; functionally that by bull's-eyeing a specific task you may be limiting the frontal lobe's ability to orchestrate solutions as our intellectual capabilities operate so obliquely to us and our consciousness. It seems as if a mutual exclusivity is present.

I gathered from the short broadcast that you support the cultivation of a creative atmosphere over a competitive one. We agree here, however I'm having trouble understanding where in this model fits your statement, that I will paraphrase (I do not have a recording to quote you), suggesting that 'spending a day in the field to brainstorm' is 'good and fun and all that', but ultimately having 'no realistic progress or innovation'? You seemed to assimilate this approach with the cultivation of eureka moments and disregard it's potential.

In my experience the process of brainstorming and dreaming in relaxing new environments serves do dilate my consciousness-to-creativity pipeline. I don't think I'm alone here, especially in the company of artists and writers, etc. I find it frustrating that you would make such suggestions as someone who is in a position to explain creativity to the public. The eureka phenomenon is incredibly integral in the creative processes of all styles of learning, exploration, and innovation. This is supported by innovators, artists, and modern psychology.

I await your response.

Thank you,
Eric

[jordan retro 5]

I'm excited about your new book; the questions of passion, great ideas, and how the brain/mind work in general are ones for which I have great interest. I was also looking forward to your visit to my website,link my name now,come on!

[Karen M. Kline]

"Connectivity" a word that I have been using for years with students from pre-school to college with my non-prof, American Community Think Tank (a student "coffeehouse environment") sans judgment!

Would love to chat with you about how the word "Natural" in your book title identifies how ideas really come to us, whatever the age.

[dxs]

I'm lookIng forward to reading this soon.. Todd Statterson also mentioned the book recently, saying it was the best book he read in September.

Can't wait to check it out.

http://www.cngongwen.com
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[John Jacobs]

Steven
Please explain
how
you write....hours spent per day, who develops the ideas that allow you to make the connections....Read the book. the best so far and I've read them all - John

[John Jacobs]

STEVEN

How did you come up with that punch line at the end of most paragraphs that kind of pulls the string and sums it all up..."Eventually he hit upon a different metaphor for the platform's dense network, He called it the World Wide Web.(89). Did you just take a walk? - John

[John Jacobs]

Steven
As a retired special ed. teacher, I spent my career in a place (High School) where the swarm did not become smart. Oh, I watched the pendulum swing from the warm fuzzies and cold prickles in the early 70's to the high stakes testing that has literally terrified everyone. But the good, inviting, hopeful, movements did appear but were waited out until, then ignored - - even their very vocabularly was expunged from the lips of any one there The fear of change permeates as Hynes said, "To criticise your family is one thing, to cricise the High Scholl is just Un-American." The adjacent possible does not exist where the student, the "expert witness" has no voice and can't be heard. I feel bad that I didn't stand up for the kids more - John

[dxs]

then ignored - even their very vocabularly was expunged from the lips
http://www.cngongwen.com
http://www.bestmishu.cn