“De Forest was wrong about the utility of gas as a detector, but he kept probing at the edges of that error,… — Steven Johnson Copy Share Image
The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of… — Steven Johnson Edges Copy Share Image
If you look at where innovation - defined as ideas, not as commercial product - tends to live, the university system is… — Steven Johnson Defined Copy Share Image
“Berners-Lee was supremely lucky in the work environment he had settled into, the Swiss particle physics lab CERN. It took him ten… — Steven Johnson History Copy Share Image
In a peer network, no one is officially in charge. It doesn't have a command hierarchy. It doesn't have a boss. So,… — Steven Johnson Boss Copy Share Image
“when one looks at innovation in nature and in culture, environments that build walls around good ideas tend to be less innovative… — Steven Johnson Good ideas Copy Share Image
“Over generations, the gene pool of the first farmers became increasingly dominated by individuals who could drink beer on a regular basis.… — Steven Johnson Copy Share Image
“Before tube amplifiers, the limits of our vocal chords made it difficult to speak to more than a thousand people at a… — Steven Johnson Time Copy Share Image
Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by… — Steven Johnson Borders Copy Share Image
The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick… — Steven Johnson Bigs Copy Share Image
Who is giving the orders to ants? No one. They are self-organizing. Each of our immune systems get smarter over the years… — Steven Johnson Ants Copy Share Image
“We are often better served by connecting ideas than we are by protecting them... Environments that build walls around good ideas tend… — Steven Johnson Good ideas Copy Share Image
It may not be possible to 'win the future,' in President Obama's words, but if we're going to encourage more innovation, it's… — Steven Johnson Enough Copy Share Image
“Babbage had most of this system sketched out by 1837, but the first true computer to use this programmable architecture didn’t appear… — Steven Johnson Computers Copy Share Image
“An absence of information is not the same as information about an absence.” We’re blind to our blindness.” — Steven Johnson Data Copy Share Image
Being right keeps you in place, being wrong forces you to explore. — Steven Johnson Being wrong Copy Share Image
The fusion of art and technology that we call interface design. — Steven Johnson Art Copy Share Image
The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go… — Steven Johnson Art Copy Share Image
For decades, we've worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the 'masses'… — Steven Johnson Assumption Copy Share Image
What's encouraging is that the early new platforms - Kindle and iPad - are clearly leading to people buying more books. The… — Steven Johnson Books Copy Share Image
I love those stretches where I've just been a writer - when I haven't been doing Internet start-ups - where I pretty… — Steven Johnson Internet Copy Share Image
One of the founding moments of public health in the 19th century effectively poisoned the water supply of London much more effectively… — Steven Johnson 19th century Copy Share Image
Those that regularly come into contact with people having diverse interests and viewpoints are more likely to come up with innovative ideas. — Steven Johnson Come up Copy Share Image
I have problems with the violence and the torture on '24.' What I'm trying to say is that that's not the only… — Steven Johnson Cognitive Copy Share Image
