ideas
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The bright rush of ideas
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2 min read
Where do good ideas come from, and how do they form? They come from extensive research bolstered by the ability to connect the dots between knowledge and different experiences. Good ideas form through time, osmosis, long walks, boredom, and the misheard; a fruitful combination of work, rest, and fearless play. Maintaining curiosity motivates part of…
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The brilliance in absurdity
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1 min read
The synergy between brilliance and absurdity is one of the paradoxes of our time. One can’t be crazy without being wickedly smart. Thinking different isn’t supposed to compute. For the innovator, experimentation is the antidote to perfectionism. Trial and error is a mechanism for chance discovery. The right answer is a function of the mistakes.…
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Ideas often come indirectly
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1 min read
We know our ideas indirectly. We all take our influences, deconstruct them, and build new concepts from those bricks. Growth results from experimentation. Then we improvise and make more things happen. We can’t possibly see the value in what we’re doing without bold execution, first and foremost. We produce, constrain, keeping what’s valuable while going beyond convenience. …
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Everything goes in the queue
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1 min read
The queue is more of a scrapbook than a notebook. It’s a hopper of brain farts and observations brewing in all formats: text, images, video, and sound. It’s… Where ideas get stored and intermix Where content molds and takes shape Where visions incubate until the timing is ripe Where some concepts never the day of…
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About those light bulb moments
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2 min read
Ideas spawn as soon as you stop thinking about them, and only after you experimented and done your research. After the work’s been done, the best thing you can do is allow your ideas to bake. Sleep on them. Turn your focus to something else while your brain connects all the neurons and turns them…
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Back of the envelope…for starters ✍️✉️
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2 min read
It doesn’t matter where or how an idea emerges. What matters is that the concept exists somewhere on paper, a napkin, an envelope, a Tweet, or a blog post. We can’t begin to assess and dissect our thoughts unless we can see its basic framework and bones visually. I’m not writing it down to remember…
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Ready, rock steady
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1 min read
The more you work the more you make, at least it appears that way. But Søren Kierkegaard thought wiser: “Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work.” Søren Kierkegaard Henry Miller also disdained to overwork: “I’ve…
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Does automation make us less human?
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1 min read
How much of our thought process do we want to relinquish to artificial intelligence? Even Gmail’s auto-replies takes the burden out of typing in two-word responses with pre-populated text likes “yes, great,” “sounds good,” or “awesome.” Soon enough the computers will be the only ones conversing and high-fiving each other. Just as the painter imitates…
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What does it mean to be me?
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1 min read
Sociologist Erving Goffman believed that all human interaction was a theatrical performance. In his most famous book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman called his analysis the study of “Dramaturgy.” Dramaturgical analysis is the idea that we present an edited version of our selves when we meet others in person. All the internet’s a…
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Everything starts on paper
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2 min read
Everything starts on paper. Whether you are using post-it notes or loose leaf, paper is ideal for getting down thoughts and mapping out ideas quickly. In fact, some Google employees prohibit phones and use paper exclusively to brainstorm. The magic of writing in analog is a controlled speed, flexibility, and focus. “Everyone can write words, draw…
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Thinking in fragments
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1 min read
Half-baked ideas are valuable ideas. Messy minds and messy processes generate new ways of thinking. We create through the imperfect. “A small drop of ink makes thousands, perhaps millions think,” wrote businessman and self-help book author William Clement Stone. The more ideas we have, the more we have to play with. Brainstorming is, therefore, a democratic…
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Textbook wisdom
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1 min read
Theories are productive ways of thinking even if they’re proven wrong. They lead to other research. Take the theory of evolution. The topic itself lends to all types of discussions around race, identity, brain and body development. Aren’t we all just pond scum who lucked out on terra firma? This is not to say we…