Steven Johnson

Host, BBC TV/PBS six-part series: HOW WE GOT TO NOW with Steven Johnson | Bestselling Author, "Wonderland" and "How We Got To Now"

Innovation

Technology

Behavioral Sciences

Health Innovation

Moderators

Steven Johnson is a best-selling author and the leading mind of today's interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to innovation. He unites a deep understanding of scientific progress with a sharp sensitivity to contemporary online trends. Johnson was chosen by Prospect magazine as one of the Top Ten Brains of the Digital Future, and The Wall Street Journal called him “one of the most persuasive advocates for the role of collaboration in innovation.”

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Steven is now the host of TED Interview Podcast. He takes over the roll from TED founder Chris Anderson.

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Johnson’s newest book, Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer, is an entertaining, wide-ranging and surprising look at how human species managed to double life expectancy in just one hundred years. How many of those extra twenty thousand days came from vaccines, or the decrease in famines, or seatbelts? What are the forces that now keep us alive longer? Behind this breakthrough lies an inspiring story of cooperative innovation and brilliant thinkers bolstered by strong public support systems and collaborative networks.

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His writing on the history of innovation inspired the Emmy-nominated six-part series on PBS, HOW WE GOT TO NOW with Steven Johnson. The book version of How We Got To Now debuted at #4 on the New York Times bestseller list, and was a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. His TED talk on innovation has been viewed more than five million times.

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In his book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most, Steven examines consequential once-in-lifetime decisions by drawing lessons from cognitive science, social psychology, military strategy, environmental planning, and great works of literature. In Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt Johnson deftly traces the path from a single struck match to a global conflagration. He doesn’t just write about the heyday of piracy, but connects it to the growth of nation-states, the history of the first multinational corporation, the origins of democracy and the birth of the tabloid media.

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His book, Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World, revolves around the creative power of play: ideas and innovations that set into motion the many momentous changes in science, technology, politics and society. Inspired by the book, Steven launched a podcast series about the past and future of play and innovation, which became a #1 iTunes podcast on innovation.

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Johnson’s bestselling book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, considers breakthroughs as different as Darwin's theories and the rise of YouTube by looking at the core set of innovation principles that have encouraged creativity across history. It's a practical guide to making any space or organization more innovation-friendly. Everything Bad Is Good For You, one of the most discussed books of 2005, argued that the increasing complexity of modern media is training us to think in more complex ways. Emergence and Future Perfect explore the power of bottom-up intelligence in both nature and contemporary society.

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He is a regular contributor to Wired magazine, as well as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other periodicals. He is @stevenbjohnson on Twitter, where he has 1.1 million followers.

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Topics

Education In The Digital Age: What The Google Generation Needs To Learn — And What They Can Teach Us

Expanding on his much-discussed 2005 bestseller, Everything Bad Is Good For You, Steven explains what schools and parents need to learn from the amazingly complex technology and culture that the Google Generation is now immersed in. He explains how video games are transforming the classroom environment; how digital books are going to revolutionize libraries and scholarship; and why social network sites are actually training kids for the twenty-first century workplace.

Health and Innovation: Mapping The Future Of Medicine and Public Health.

Steven's acclaimed 2005 bestseller, The Ghost Map, told the fascinating story of the battle against cholera in the 19th-century, and his Emmy-nominated episode of How We Got To Now, "Clean," explored the heroic work behind the creation of clean drinking water. In this talk, Steven draws on his research into the medical and public health breakthroughs of the past to illustrate the kind of collaboration, technology, and mindset that will be essential for meeting 21st-century health challenges.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Patterns Of Innovation.

Steven discusses the seven patterns of unusually innovative teams and organizations that he examined in his bestselling book and influential TED talk. He explains how "slow hunches" are more important than "lightbulb moments" and explains how the 18th-century coffeehouse was a model of multi-disciplinary collaboration. And he looks at how modern platforms like the World Wide Web and Twitter have encouraged breakthrough ideas in the modern age.

How We Got To Now: Lessons From History's Unsung Innovators.

Drawing upon his Emmy-nominated PBS series, Steven tells the amazing stories behind some of the modern world's most important innovations, and explains how sometimes breakthrough ideas can have unpredictable effects. Steven explores the personality traits and environments that led these maverick inventors to create accurate watches, clean drinking water, air conditioning, and other necessities of modern life.

A Short History of Living Longer

A hundred years ago, global life expectancy was in the mid-thirties and a third of all children died before reaching adulthood. Today, the average human being lives into their seventies, and childhood mortality has been reduced by a factor of ten. Drawing on his acclaimed book and PBS series, Extra Life, Steven tells the inspiring story of humanity's greatest achievement, the doubling of human life expectancy over the past century. Described by the New York Times as a “deep thinker and gifted storyteller,” Steven explores fascinating narratives from the past and present of medicine and public health to illustrate crucial lessons about the kinds of innovation and activism that drive momentous change in society, from the early vaccine pioneers to the thrilling, race-against-the-clock story of the antibiotics revolution, to new breakthroughs in genome sequencing and machine learning. And he looks at the future of the human lifespan: can we reduce the health inequalities that remain? Will we someday be able to stop the aging process itself?

Videos