The Ghost Map was one of my favorite books this year. Author Steven Johnson will be taking the stage at BIF-3 next month. I have a feeling he'll be sharing the story of his latest venture Outside.In. So here's his TEDTalks video about Ghost Map. This historical narrative about London's cholera epidemic in the 19th century lends authority to what BIF research advisor Andy Hargadon told me last month when we talked about the whole innovation process: Our challenges, our behaviors, even our organizational structures—aren’t all that different from a hundred years ago. It's new words, new stories but the very same problems, he told me.
Johnson's book presents one of the founding moments of our modern public health system. In the midst of the scientific confusion surrounding the cholera epidemic in 1830s London, stood a talented multi-disciplinarian doctor named John Snow. He'd been arguing for years that the source of the contaminant was in the water and not the 'stench' yet public health authorities repeatedly ignored him. What's really interesting is that this a great study on how cultural change happens and how good ideas can languish for years amidst bad assumptions. Why is it that we can't seem to evolve this aspect of human nature?
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