Where Good Ideas Come From

In early 2010, Nike announced a new Web-based marketplace it called the GreenXchange, where it publicly released more than 400 of its patents that involve environmentally friendly materials or technologies. The marketplace was a kind of hybrid of commercial self-interest and civic good. By making its good ideas public, Nike made it possible for out

Our thought shapes the spaces we inhabit, and our spaces return the favor.

When nature finds itself in need of new ideas, it strives to connect, not protect.

One way or another, the noise had to be preserved, because without it, evolution would grind to a halt.

The idea was right, but the environment wasn’t ready for it yet.

it is not merely that weak ties allow information to travel throughout a network more efficiently—that is, without becoming trapped on the remote island of a close-knit group. From the perspective of innovation, it’s even more important that the information arriving from one of those weak ties is coming from a different context, what the innovation

Nike was widening the network of minds who were actively thinking about how to make its ideas more useful, without putting anyone else on its payroll.

the collective flow of energized minds forming liquid networks in their mixing spaces and situation rooms. Building 99—like Building 20 before it—is a space that sees information spillover as a feature, not a flaw. It is designed to leak. In this, it shares some core values with the liquid networks of dense cities.

This is not the wisdom of the crowd, but the wisdom of someone in the crowd. It’s not that the network itself is smart; it’s that the individuals get smarter because they’re connected to the network.

When nature finds itself in need of new ideas, it strives to connect, not protect.