Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

So what I get out of this video is that it's okay to have half-formed ideas in your head, as long as you're interacting with other people who also have half-formed (or half-baked) ideas in their heads and hoping against hope that as you interact with people that you find those who have ideas that mesh with yours enough to help what you've got to become fully formed.

Then you either argue over who had the idea first or enter into some kind of collaboration or creative commons to get the work done.

This doesn't mean we reform patent or copyright law so that no matter who creates what, it's a free-for all. We collaborate. We agree to work together. We agree to reap the rewards, if any. But let's get me off that soapbox for an evening.

Everyone collaborates. We like to think that the great novelists don't collaborate, but I look to the example of JRR Tolkein, who collaborated with the likes of CS Lewis but, more importantly, collaborated over a lifetime with like-minded friends, some of whom wrote books, some of whom lived ordinary lives, some of whom died in the trenches in World War I. He wrote stuff and tried it out on others, who offered him advice, insights and critical analyses which led to his creations becoming so much the better. That's what I'm looking for in collaboration.