Steven Johnson Quotes

If you really want to step up your team's creative thinking, take a hard look at how many people you're putting in a room together. More than three to five is probably too many.

If I collaborate with people, ideas...they take interesting turns and twists, and I'm excited for that and that process and excited to see what we come up with.

Creative collaboration is awesome.

I guess some people are brilliant enough to be brilliant on their own and never doubt anything and come up with fabulous things. But I think it's good to get into arguments with people and have them say, 'That sucks' or 'You're crazy' or 'That's cheesy' or 'What do you think of this?'

If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.

Listen to Everyone. Ideas come from everywhere

So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.

If you put enough smart people together in one space, good things happen.

I think that everything is part of creativity - the more you create, the more you have ideas, and the more you meet people.

What I'm saying is individuals have better ideas if they're connected to rich, diverse networks of other individuals. If you put yourself in an environment with lots of different perspectives, you yourself are going to have better, sharper, more original ideas. It's not that the network is smart.

I love creating. I love being with creative people who can think quickly on their feet.

Collaboration is like carbonation for fresh ideas. Working together bubbles up ideas you would not have come up with solo, which gets you further faster.

I really love being a part of the creative process. I love having an opinion that gets heard, and then it's all up for discussion.

That's what's so wonderful about collaborating: your idea can explode and become something else.

Nothing, believe me, nothing is more satisfying to me personally than getting a great idea and then beatin' it to death.

I'll stop when I run out of ideas.

It's interesting to see what people who you find talented come up with, so you work with them. Sometimes ideas come along quicker cause they'll come up with something and you'll be like, "It would have taken me forever to get to that point!" Because you're talking together, your brains are moving faster.

But how shall I get ideas? ''Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind - Act!

You can never discard too many bad ideas.

In great teams, conflict becomes productive. The free flow of conflicting ideas is critical for creative thinking, for discovering new solutions no one individual would have come to on his own.

I can't really say - if I've run out of ideas until I've had my next set of ideas.

When we have a brilliant idea, instead of making others think it is ours, why not let them cook and stir the idea themselves.

Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.

This is the funny thing about me. People think John just comes up with all the ideas. I'm honored. People think I have a big old brain, but actually I am the sum of the people I work with.