The biggest problem is that there's no gradual migration process
I'm not convinced this is true: the biggest problem seems to be the way knowledge spills over from person to person when they're in close proximity to each other, and the way new ideas often appear from serendipitous encounters. Popular books like Steven Berlin Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City discuss the issue in greater detail and cite much of the original research on this phenomenon.
Some of that original research attempts to measure knowledge transfers by proxy, like the way patents tend to cite other patents whose authors live nearby. It's not perfect but it is pretty compelling. Other research relies on descriptions of famous people describing how chance encounters fertilized their ideas.
I'm working on solving this (Floobits YC S13 yadda yadda), but there's still much to be done.
Very cool. If you haven't read Johnson's book in particular you should!
Comments
The biggest problem is that there's no gradual migration process
I'm not convinced this is true: the biggest problem seems to be the way knowledge spills over from person to person when they're in close proximity to each other, and the way new ideas often appear from serendipitous encounters. Popular books like Steven Berlin Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City discuss the issue in greater detail and cite much of the original research on this phenomenon.
Some of that original research attempts to measure knowledge transfers by proxy, like the way patents tend to cite other patents whose authors live nearby. It's not perfect but it is pretty compelling. Other research relies on descriptions of famous people describing how chance encounters fertilized their ideas.
I'm working on solving this (Floobits YC S13 yadda yadda), but there's still much to be done.
Very cool. If you haven't read Johnson's book in particular you should!