Group Genius, Keith Sawyer
Group Genius, Keith Sawyer
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Group Genius
The Creative Power of Collaboration

Author: Keith Sawyer

Narrator: Jonathan Marosz

Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 01/04/2008


Synopsis

Creativity has long been thought to be an individual gift, best pursued alone; schools, organizations, and whole industries are built on this idea. But what if the most common beliefs about how creativity works are wrong?
In this authoritative and fascinating new audiobook, Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, tears down some of the most popular myths about creativity and erects new principles in their place. He reveals that creativity is always collaborative - even when you're alone. Sawyer's audiobook is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world: the ATM, the mountain bike, and open-source operating systems, among others.
In each case, Sawyer tells the true story of innovation. In spite of the "lone genius" myths that always spring up after an invention's success, these important inventions always originate in collaboration.
To understand the hidden collaborations that drive exceptional creativity, Sawyer spent 15 years studying jazz groups and theater ensembles, small businesses, and large corporations. In Group Genius he distills the essence of this acclaimed research and shows us how to be more creative in collaborative group settings, how to change organizational dynamics for the better, and how to tap into our own reserves of creativity. The empowering message is that all of us have the potential to be more creative; we just need to learn the secrets of group genius.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Maarten on August 30, 2013

Chapter 2 is what the book should have been all about. Although he's only skimming the surface of his research it provides some unique insights into the Collaborative Mind. Unfortunately he tries to map his knowledge about the mind to the connected age and anything that can be defined as innovation.......more

Goodreads review by Charlene on February 18, 2017

Definitely leaps and bounds better than The Global Brain by Howard Bloom. Still, it's very clear this was written in 2007. This is a *really* great book for 2007, but there are more exciting books out there now. I would definitely read something new by Sawyer. He has 2 newer books that I will try to......more

Goodreads review by Don on December 16, 2007

Not the most scintillating read, but I've been checking out a lot of these books to bolster my understanding of Web 2.0 business collaboration, since I've been doing a lot of magazine writing on the topic over the past year. The biggest take-home of this book is that great ideas and inventions aren'......more

Goodreads review by Adam on May 25, 2022

Fascinating. The science to creativity, by the professor that was a pupil and contributor of the author of Flow, Mikhail Chosldfbmosshci (lol). The first half of the book was definitely the most worthwhile, where he talks about group flow and emmergent creativity. The second half was bogged down in......more

Goodreads review by . on January 18, 2024

Sawyer divides his time between a) examples of where emergent innovation occurs in groups, b) examples of where the idea of a “lone genius” is a myth c) outlining some of the conditions required for encouraging collaborative groups (orgs, teams, relationships). There’s some interesting insights here......more