A few years ago, I wrote an article for Above the Law entitled, Where Good Ideas Come From. 

It was from a book I read that caught my fancy when I was browsing in a bookstore called Where Good Ideas Come From, written by Steven Johnson.  

I took a chance and read it and was quite impressed.  

So I wrote the article. To save you the trouble of linking, the heart of it is restated below.  But – as a bonus – I have added more thoughts about where good ideas come from.

To my mind, it is hard to find a better thing to think about, so here goes….

I start with Peter Drucker’s epiphany statement that all businesses must do two things to succeed – namely, Innovate and Market – it seemed like the generation of good ideas – wherever they might come from – would be useful for any real estate or other business.  Here is what Mr. Johnson came up with:

  • Liquid Networks:  This is my favorite one. It is where random unrelated contacts in divergent fields yield incredible breakthroughs.  For example, this is the concept of where the printing press supposedly came from, i.e., an idea in one field of endeavor that was extraordinarily useful outside that field.
  • The Adjacent Possible:  This is where learning gets to a point where the next level of thought can be figured out.  This is difficult to describe, and perhaps the least useful concept, but it makes a lot of sense -why people simultaneously make the same discovery in different places and independently
  • The Slow Hunch:  Johnson postulates that this is where you think of something vaguely, and it sits in your mind for a while – possibly even for many years - and then something hits a tripwire and becomes incredibly useful.  I have found this to be the case for me. This is why if I have an idea that seems interesting, I will write it down and put it in a pile of things to look at someday. When someday comes, sometimes that (old) idea literally leaps off the page to tell me some incredible breakthrough thought.
  • Serendipity:  This is where you go for a walk – browse – wander around – and let your passive brain think about it.  I find this less useful for new ideas but more useful for solving problems that I cannot easily solve.  It is sort of like sleeping on a problem and waking up with a greater idea than I had the day before.
  • Error: Yes Edison is famous for saying that he never failed when he kept trying to create a lightbulb.  Instead, when asked, he said that he had succeeded in learning several thousand ways not to make a lightbulb.
  • Exaptation:  Maybe this is my real favorite, which is to take ideas from one branch of knowledge and apply them in another area.  I do this all the time and it has resulted in many breakthrough ideas for me.  For example, my idea of putting lawyers as more important than clients within my law firm came from Starbucks’ business model to put the customers second and the employees first.  That was a breakthrough idea in the legal world at the time.
  • Platforms:  This is very interesting.  His example is a coral reef, where each party on the reef is doing its own thing without really thinking about the reef, but somehow it all cooperates together.  An analogy for humans might be a city.  He proposes that cities stimulate a ton more innovation and creativity due to the use of the above possible places for good idea creation

Here are additional thoughts I have about idea generation:

  • Just Slamming Away:  This is how I do it myself.  I like to just sit there with a pad and a pen– and no iPhone – and just think – damn it!!! And all sorts of ideas burble forth. 
  • Artificial Intelligence:  How about asking every single person in the world today and in the past if they have thoughts that might help?  Yes - go with ChatGPT or one of those AI programs, which essentially sifts zillions of data points throughout humanity, and ask for whatever you want.  The AI might not be good at coming up with new ideas but as we can see from the above, many ideas are new to one area of the world but have already been adopted in another.  This is what Johnson calls Exaptation above.  AI can put Exaptation on steroids.  
  • Bold Hypothesis:  I give my daughter, Kim, credit for putting me onto a famous – and brilliant – philosopher, Karl Popper, whose theory for idea generation is to promulgate a bold hypothesis and then try to prove it false.  I love this as not only is it a rigorous way of proceeding, but it is fun to boot!
  • Bruce’s Brain:  This is how my brain works for idea generation

If I come up with an idea and someone tells me it is a dumb idea, my ears will perk up. If I come up with an idea and a bunch of people tell me it is a dumb idea, I get really interested, and if I come up with an idea and everyone tells me it is a dumb idea, I am like a dog hunting for a bone – I am all over it as I know I might be onto something. 

My philosophy is that if any idea sounds like a good idea – i.e., is good on its face – then the odds are that people are already doing it.  It is only in the stupid bin where the brilliant ideas are lurking.  And you have to have the guts to reach into that bin and pull them out.  Of course – obviously – most of the stupid bin ideas are, in fact, stupid, so you try to use some brainpower to weed them out.  But at other times, there is nothing to do but try the ideas out and see what happens.  In other words, you have to be willing to endure the slings and arrows of failure and the humiliation of everyone – and I mean everyone – telling you: Toldyaso.

Strangely, when my stupid bin idea turns out to be a good one after all, I never hear anyone say to me: wow, you were right!

All of this resonates with a poem I wrote about this.

Finally, dear Real Estate Philosopher readers, if you have an idea generation theory that is not encompassed herein, I would love to hear about it.

I wish everyone the greatest success.

Bruce Stachenfeld aka The Real Estate Philosopher®