Great ideas don’t necessarily pop into people’s heads

Steven Berlin Johnson (author of Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, due out tomorrow) recently gave a talk at TED on the amazing power of networks. His thesis is that most of the great breakthrough ideas in history were not instances of individuals having epiphanies, but of those people being well-connected with lots of other people, so when the germ of an idea arose in their minds, a natural process of influence and collaboration eventually led to the breakthrough. (See article and video link.) Johnson says that an important idea is a network in itself.

This insight should punctuate for Christian leaders the importance of being well-networked with other leaders so that when someone has a simple idea, there is immediate opportunity for development, amplification, and maturing of the idea–perhaps into a transforming experience.