The Slow Hunch is the title of a chapter of Steven Johnson‘s book “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” (ISBN-10: 1594487715) and is a primary source of inspiration for the naming of Hunch Manifest Inc.
The Slow Hunch states, in essence, that breakthrough ideas almost never come in a sudden insight. The most important ideas take a long time to emerge from a dormant thought. At some point this hunch becomes accessible, perhaps after some collision of smaller related hunches, formning something bigger than themselves. As time passes and collisions ensue, the idea may incubate, and take the form of a hunch. The challenge of our time is to allow these hunches to come together in a systematic way.
Innovation in the 21st century has as its engine a new paradigm of connectivity, the networked masses are able to share and collaborate exponentially more. Therefore it follows that the opportunity for stumbling across new information which build and improve our ideas ensues. While some will argue we are overwhelmed with the information, a reflective mind will synthesize the information in a meaningful way. To quote Johnson, “Chance favours the connected mind”.