Sleeping Beauty and Innovation
Via kottke.org
On sleeping beauties, evolutionary and cultural innovations that quietly survive for long periods before achieving explosive success once conditions are right for thriving.
Why do some innovations remain dormant for long periods of time before, seemingly, experience explosive success? This article, from The Guardian, discusses some evolutionary biology principles that may help us better understand human innovations.
Excerpted from Sleeping Beauties: the Mystery of Dormant Innovations in Nature and Culture by Andreas Wagner.