Wednesday, October 06, 2010

scenius

A new word for the lexicon; scenius, reputedly coined by Brian Eno and quoted in the conversation (of which below is an excerpt) between Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson in Wired, as they discussed their respective new books.

Johnson: Also, there’s a related myth—that innovation comes primarily from the profit motive, from the competitive pressures of a market society. If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect.

Kelly: The musician Brian Eno invented a wonderful word to describe this phenomenon: scenius. We normally think of innovators as independent geniuses, but Eno’s point is that innovation comes from social scenes,from passionate and connected groups of people.


via boing boing and @anjali28

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