Drupal is a stellar platform for innovation - but why? I've been thinking about that question quite a bit as I read Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From - an exploration of 6 interconnected environmental factors that spark creative thinking and innovation.
The adjacent possible, Johnson's first factor, is clearly a big part of why Drupal is such a great tool for building something new.
The adjacent possible is the total set of next steps that can be taken at a particular point in time, given the tools, resources, and skills at hand. As Johnson puts it:
[Good ideas] are, inevitably, constrained by the parts and skills that surround them. (28)
Johnson illustrates this with an example of a quintessential innovator in the music world:
[Miles] Davis could explore the adjacent possible of jazz, to help invent a whole new genre that others would build upon, in part because he didn't have to invent the D Dorian or the valved trumpet. (192)
When you're making "new music" with Drupal, the huge repository of contributed modules and themes ensure that you always have an expansive collection of instruments at hand, a collection that let's you focus on inventing something new. We're talking about something much bigger than the band room at the local high school, or even at the local symphony. As of this writing, drupal.org lists over 5500 modules and more than 500 themes available for Drupal 6.
That's a whole lot of adjacent possible to work with, and the collection is growing.
The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore those boundaries. (31)
Better yet, with Drupal the adjacent possible is continually expanding. New modules are being developed all the time, and existing modules are being improved and tried out in new contexts.
So every time you share something new that you've done with Drupal, give yourself a pat on the back, because you're helping expand the adjacent possible for the rest of us!
