Where Good Ideas Come From

The Natural History of Innovation

By: Steven Johnson

Narrated by: Eric Singer

Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on - in exhilarating style - one of our key questions: "Where do good ideas come from?"

With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the insight of his best-selling Everything Bad Is Good for You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen?

Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.

©2010 Steven Johnson (P)2010 Penguin Audio

Word use is lyrical

Yes, it can be summarized in a 5 minute read but the reader would miss out on the journey the author takes the reader. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book. I

Fun and informative

if you like stories of inventors and the origins of technology, this is a great look at the generative processes behind them.

interesting insights and engaging narration

I don't normally write reviews of the books I listen to. In this case my opinion of the book is so much higher than the general tone of the other reviewers that I felt compelled to share my views.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book finding it both valuable for ideas on increasing my own creativity and interesting from a historical science perspective. The reviews on Amazon are much more skewed towards the positive end than are the reviews here, and the Amazon reviews are more useful regarding the contents of this book.

Regarding the narration: I liked it. I found the narrator's tone engaging. This narrator decided to differentiate quoted text from the primary author's text by using an accent for the quoted text. While the narrator's accent selection was sometimes amusing, it was never distracting and certainly not irritating (as others reported). When an audio work quotes another work, there is always the potential for confusion of when the quote ends. One solution would be to state “end quote”, but that would be distracting. I found that the narrator's decision to differentiate quotes with an accent provided clarity of attribution while maintaining the flow of the work.

Thought Provoking Book

If you are looking to understand the science and history around innovation grounded in facts that span the life of Ford, 3M, and Apple then this is the book for you.

Steven does a good job beating (read repetitive) into the science behind what makes innovation so special and albeit hard to manufacture.

Tremendous insight...

An outstanding look and the development and proliferation of ideas and invention. This title is comprehensive in its subject matter and examples and tears down many commonly held misconceptions related to competition, free markets, and capitalism.

Well researched... tough subjective topic.

This book was well written and the reading was performed superbly. If you're on the fence, go ahead, you wont be disappointed.

Content is well researched. This topic is very subjective and hard to pin down any trends. I think his results are a bit of a reach. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in product design.

Great content and great performance

Lots of great arguments backed by in-depth research and fresh perspective.

Most importantly, this book is very readable - flows with great narratives. And I was surprised by how good the audible performance is. It made me want to find what other books Eric Singer has done. (Digression - Eric Singer makes the listening even more enjoyable with great techniques and assumed accents.)

Content-wise, I have read several books on platform and innovation (like 12-types) which offers me a good base for comparison.

Steven Johnson's book approached it with the same breadth and depth of intellectual capacity that he admired. The previous innovation books I read tends to focus more on the micro level and imposes very strict structure as a way to replicate or facilitate innovations. And, after reading this book, I think about innovation or creative thinking/problem-solving differently.

Back to the book. Steven Johnson started by recounting and retelling Darwin's discovery of the origin of species. And, lots of coral reefs. Initially, I thought I was listening to a biology book. The analogy approach is similar to Malcom Gladwell's but different in that Steven Johnson used the biological paradigm as the master framework.

All and all, I enjoy the read.

Great book and great narration

Loved it, a must read for the change - makers! We will definitely learn and enjoy the book.

historical character voices bad, but good overall

Every English scientist was voiced as James Mason, and every German as a cartoon psychiatrist, bite the main narrative was will read and there billion itself is impeccable.

Inspiring

My hunches are here… but much more than I ever imagined… must read for the ones looking to change the world and idea at a time