Sorrel Salb

Brian Eno (musician and producer) calls this a “scenius “ .

“Under this model, great ideas are often birthed by a group of creative individuals — artists, curators, thinkers, theorists, and other tastemakers — who make up an “ecology of talent.”

1. Mutual respect and appreciation.  The first and possibly most important condition of collaboration. When departments even appear to be in opposition, the conditions for scenius collapse quickly.


2. Rapid exchange of tools and techniques.  At the heart of the open-source software movement is Github, where coders share

Just as the Renaissance had le botteghe , scenius more broadly requires a home. As it turns out, a surprising amount of innovation happens in bars.

To understand how historical ingredients apply to today’s communities and micro-scenia, I sought out potential emergent scenia from the present day.  

I found them in theInterIntellectandWrite of Passage. Both Anna Gát’s InterIntellect and David Perell’s Write of Passage are transitioning from communities to micro-scenia, and each has the potential

Some of the most famous scenia – Motown, Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, and the Inklings – all had a place-based ritual. They met in the same location, usually at the same time, and at a regular cadence. Having a meeting place – often a bar – provides an informal setting where societal barriers break down and people collaborate regardless of

Starting in the mid-500s BC, history’s foundational scenius sprung to life in Greece and lasted over two centuries. The ancient Greeks created the modern philosophy we still turn to in search of answers to life’s biggest questions. In addition to foundational technologies and concepts like geometry (every high schooler learns the Pythagorean

Scenia can be large or small, span over centuries or last just a decade. The Inklings consisted of no more than fifteen people who met for a little under two decades, while Silicon Valley, fueled by the contributions of millions of people, has progressed uninterruptedly for nearly seventy years. No two scenia look the same; their similarity lies in

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

When looking back at History there are dozens and dozens of stories about specific time periods where an uncanny number of creative spirits gathered within the same school, street, building, found each other and imagined on a much larger scale that they could have alone.

There is no one leader but rather mutual influences, respect, and possibly