“But in fact when you go back and you look at the history of innovation it turns out that so often there is this quiet collaborative process that goes on, either in people building on other peoples’ ideas, but also in borrowing ideas, or tools or approaches to problems.
“The ultimate idea comes from this remixing of various different components. There still are smart people and there still are people that have moments where they see the world differently in a flash.
“But for the most part it’s a slower and more networked process than we give them credit for.”
The book spans a huge period in history, ranging from the invention of double entry accounting, and Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century, through to Tim Berners Lee and the world wide web, and ultimately YouTube.com.
He had the idea for the book while writing The Ghost Map, about the cholera epidemic of 1854 in London, and the subsequent discovery of the origins of the disease. The story goes that a man named John Snow had had the idea to map cases of the disease, and using that map pinpointed the source of the outbreak – a water pump.
As he researched the story he realised that it simply wasn’t true – that Snow had had the idea for some time before this and that he also had had a collaborator, a vicar named Henry Whitehead who was central to the investigation. This is what Mr Johnson calls the ‘slow hunch’.
“I realised there was this theory about innovation, and the spaces that made innovation possible, that was lurking in the background of that story”