We Are Often Better Served By Connecting

In A Peer Network, No One Is Officially In Charge. It Doesn't Have A Command Hierarchy. It Doesn't Have A Boss. So, All The Decisions Are Somehow Made Collectively. The Control Of The System Is In The Hands Of Everyone Who Is A Part Of It.

Good Ideas May Not Want To Be Free, But They Do Want To Connect, Fuse, Recombine. They Want To Reinvent Themselves By Crossing Conceptual Borders. They Want To Complete Each Other As Much As They Want To Compete

We Are Often Better Served By Connecting Ideas Than We Are By Protecting Them.

The Patterns Are Simple, But Followed Together, They Make For A Whole That Is Wiser Than The Sum Of Its Parts. Go For A Walk; Cultivate Hunches; Write Everything Down, But Keep Your Folders Messy; Embrace Serendipity; Make Generative Mistakes; Take On Multiple Hobbies; Frequent Coffeehouses And Other Liquid Networks; Follow The Links; Let Others Build On Your Ideas; Borrow, Recycle; Reinvent. Build A Tangled Bank.

This Is How Great Intellectual Breakthroughs Usually Happen In Practice. It Is Rarely The Isolated Genius Having A Eureka Moment Alone In The Lab. Nor Is It Merely A Question Of Building On Precedent, Of Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants, In Newton's Famous Phrase. Great Breakthroughs Are Closer To What Happens In A Flood Plain: A Dozen Separate Tributaries Converge, And The Rising Waters Lift The Genius High Enough That He Or She Can See Around The Conceptual Obstructions Of The Age.