Adjacent Possible

One my favorite authors, Steven Berlin Johnson, outlines a concept he calls “Adjacent Possible” in his book, Where Good Ideas Come From.

The adjacent possible is the available next step in innovation. It’s the combinations and outcomes that exist with the given set of components or knowledge or abilities. The Gutenberg printing method wasn’t possible without the wine press it was built out of. The computer could be imagined but not built before the existence of the vacuum tube. The adjacent possible are the doors leading out of our current room.

Too often in innovation and in our personal lives, we know where we want to go, but its hard to see the first step. It’s hard to know which doors we’ll need to open to get to the room where the adjacent possible is actually the things we’ve been dreaming about.

The secret to this conundrum? The solution? Start opening doors. Start taking steps.