Sorrel Salb

Scenius is The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, where C.S Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien frequented and birthed three of the five best-selling fantasy novels of all time: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings; it’s The Bloomsbury Group, a loose collective of friends who met in England in the early 20th century such as Virginia Wo

Thirteen of history’s most productive and influential scenia and their contributions to humanity.

Kevin Kelly provided us with four ingredients for scenius: 

• Mutual appreciation 


• Rapid exchange of tools and techniques 


• Network effects of success 


• Local tolerance for the novelties

These burgeoning efforts offer hope that scenius can indeed be created online, but must also be strengthened and punctuated by real-world interaction; that competition will always drive humans to push themselves further, but that competition need not be zero-sum; that the scale of the internet can mean bolder, more ambitious missions.  

Now that you know the secret, that human progress is the history of great scenia, you have no excuse. You cannot claim ignorance. You have a toolkit, and you have thirteen examples of scenius to mine for further lessons. You should also have the ability to recognize scenius, whether in history books or in its infant form in modern communities. 

There is one common factor between all these names, whether from the 70s or today, whether punk poets, philosophers, filmmakers, writers or marketing strategists:  they are makers .

They are deeply connected to their creative muscle, they produce on a regular if not daily basis, they test, they fail, they take risks, they explore,  THEY CR