People who study creativity and innovation talk a lot about the value of “recombination” — bringing existing ideas, practices, processes, or technologies together in new ways or applying them in fresh contexts or markets. It’s a model that has led to many popular consumer products, such as leak-proof water bottles that borrow nozzles from shampoo dispensers, and home cholesterol testers that incorporate the inject/eject mechanism from CD players.
Finding New Ideas When You Don’t Have a Broad Network
People who innovate via recombination (bringing existing ideas or technologies together in new ways or applying them in fresh contexts) tend to be network brokers with diverse contacts, and that vantage point allows them to see things that others can’t. But recent research shows that people who are firmly ensconced in a single, densely connected community can be just as innovative if they do the opposite: narrow their focus. Though network brokers benefit from allocating their attention in a balanced way across all contacts, scouting for recombination opportunities, non-brokers fare better when they selectively attend to a few communication partners who can help them see anomalies and inconsistencies among ideas within their domain. So for the purpose of innovation, neither group should change its approach to networking — but both should pay attention to whom they pay attention.