Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas
Richard Ogle
Harvard Business Review Press
For centuries, western thinking about creativity fixed on the notion of the lone, heroic genius triumphing through sheer force of will and intellect. The new science of ideas set forth in Smart World compels us to finally abandon this view. In its place, Richard Ogle proposes we take an essentially ecological view of the mind in which the primary locus of creative energy shifts to the space in which breakthroughs occur.
Instead of being generated by isolated intellects, ideas emerge from interlinked “idea spaces” to which individuals successfully connect. The most creative people, it turns out, are those who let the system think for them. Practical inventions like the printing press, social and business innovations from eBay to homeschooling, and centers of creativity such as Athens and San Francisco’s South of Market district, all illustrate the principles of the emerging science of ideas and demonstrate the range of its implications.
Though still in its infancy, this science is already radically transforming our understanding of what human creativity is and how it originates. Smart World paints an intriguing vision in which we will develop an economics of ideas underlying the idea-economy, witness an exponential increase in the pace of innovation, and better anticipate where the next waves of innovation may come from.