When Ideas have sex

Matt riley says at a TED conference, “When sexual organisms reproduce they retain the characteristics of both the parents. It is not so in case of asexual reproduction where the powerful overpowers the other. Similarly, when ideas have sex, innovations are born.”

Have you heard ‘The Pencil Story’? (You can watch the clip here):
"Nobody knows how to make a pencil. There's not a single person in the world who actually knows how to make a pencil."
"In order to make a pencil, you have to get wood for the barrel. In order to get wood, you have to have logging. You have to have somebody who can manufacture saws. No single person knows how to do all that."
"What's called lead isn't lead. It's graphite. It comes from some mines in South America. In order to make pencils, you'd have to be able to get the lead." 
"The rubber at the tip isn't really rubber, but it used to be. It comes from Malaysia, although the rubber tree is not native to Malaysia. It was imported into Malaysia by some English botanists."
"So, in order to make a pencil, you would have to be able to do all of these things. There are probably thousands of people who have cooperated together to make this pencil. Somehow or other, the people in South America who dug out the graphite cooperated with the people in Malaysia who tapped the rubber trees, cooperated with, maybe, people in Oregon who cut down the trees."
"These thousands of people don't know one another. They speak different languages. They come from different religions. They might hate one another if they met.”

This story by Freidman was originally inspired by the 1958 essay, I, Pencil, by Leonard E. Read. Read's essay concludes:
"The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth."

The above piece of musings inspires in many ways. What I’d like to point out is we don’t need individuals knowing everything. We don’t need self sufficient people with high IQs. Instead we need everyone to contribute. We need, for the benefit of humanity through innovation, effective ways to communicate our ideas, even though they might not be complete, and collaboration strategies to use the same.