What you describe as fora for new ideas, the breaking down of boundaries in board rooms, seminars, trucks and planes, or even Jim’s shower, seem to me to be particular modern in character and ‘controlled commotion’ specific to what has been described perhaps as ‘modernity’ (though I profoundly dislike the word and don’t really grasp its remit). Admittedly, cities and markets, or even smoking and showering, are not new, but viewing them as a crucial source for ideas seems to me like we are simply making the best with what we have. In other words, your piece made me wonder whether ‘controlled commotion’ could be historically and culturally specific. We do live in a context of information overload where some form of control over the bombardment of sensory and knowledge bites to which we are subjected (and which we actively seek out) is necessary. So, rather than saying we are swamped, we find in the serendipitous gathering of information bites a source of inspiration. But what we actually do most of the time, and perhaps more and more, is a fair amount of selection, of discarding, of deliberate forgetting of information, etc. Sadly, there does not appear to be much anthropology on ‘the art of forgetting’, bar the eponymous book.
Perhaps the particular skill we have developed as humans in modern times (and which would then characterize the (new?) generation of new ideas) is no longer the assimilation of knowledge and/or generation of ideas by putting together previously un-related things in a new context but the choices we make of what to forget and discard. The game may be to see what’s left and be amazed, not so much by its novelty as by the fact that it emerged from such a random brain storm. Selecting what, where, when and crucially how to forget may be more to the point, though somewhat self-defeating.

Because indeed, if controlled commotion has a cultural and historical specificity, it begs the question of how other people in other times and other places got their ideas… and surely this must be an interesting idea for anthropology. Surely, creativity is not specific to modern cities or corporate board rooms. Perhaps a context of information overload is only relative to how much overall ‘knowledge’ there is. Presumably, living as an intellectual in Renaissance Europe would have been a bit like modern-day information overload. The difference today being that there are far more intellectuals (including would-bes) and that knowledge has been democratized. But, yes, this does imply an impact on the quality of said ‘knowledge’ and the debates surrounding its generation: not all smokers are full of ideas and, surely you Grant, will find a new way of getting yours.
And, after all, what is a new idea? It is far more likely that we shall have many ideas that are new to us as individuals, rather than absolutely unique and original on a world-scale. It doesn’t make them any less exciting. Indeed, we won’t know how ‘new’ they are unless we bother to write them down and sit and compare with the many other people who have written on whatever subject it may be. So, yes, academia can be tedious: it’s never nearly as much fun to read about what great ideas others have had than it is to come up with the thought process oneself. But academia has probably provided some people with an intellectual backbone that enables them to expound as they do. Choose any subject you’re unfamiliar with and see how many ‘new’ ideas you come up with; I just tried it with creativity and the generation of ideas… and it’s great, but I have no illusions as to the originality of my thoughts!

The shame of it all (and this is probably as true for me today as it is for others elsewhere or as it was in the past) is that very few people actually sit down and write down their ideas. It’s one thing to have them, but quite another to be able to bolster them. And perhaps this is the beauty of this type of exchange: no need to bother thinking things through too thoroughly if the object is to stimulate or even only titillate.

Interesting. Very interesting. I do think this is why “brain storming” works so well. Its get everything in play so that the selecting and combining can take place. And you’re right, showers have the same quality as trucks and planes. Lots of “lose noise” in which to find patterns.