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Comparing vs. referencing
A year ago, I appeared as a guest on Nick Wignall’s Minds and Mics podcast to discuss my work with the book that would become Creative Doing. Our conversation was focused on practical creativity, and about halfway through we stumbled across an interesting topic: social comparison and creativity. In particular, we discussed the benefits and…
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How experienced developers use corporate engineering blogs
A few weeks ago, I started a discussion at r/experienceddevs with the question, “Has a corporate engineering blog made you want to join the company?” I wanted to share some key findings: The majority of experienced developers who responded to the thread applied for a job or joined a company after learning more about it…
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Apple’s first store was awesome
When Ye announced the Yeezy stores, I wrote this thread: Yeezy is one of the most exciting, energetic, and relevant businesses in the world right now, which makes it worth investigating. There’s a clear connection Ye wants to make between himself and Steve Jobs, so naturally I looked into Apple stores and came across this…
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Generation vs. practice vs. performance
There are at least three types of different creative work. Generation is preliminary work with the purpose of thinking and making breakthroughs. Writing to think is one application of this. Clearing the wastewater is another application. Practice is carefully refining a skill, whether that’s technical or conceptual. This mainly involves discipline, correction, and constant development. …
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Contentions: Stop wasting your money, nobody wants your content marketing
The term, “content marketing,” is both one of the most well-understood use cases for writing in business—a good source of jobs directly related to writing—and still often one of the most poorly defined, mis-applied, and problematic initiatives for businesses. Former Animalz CEO Devin Bramhall describes this in her public resignation announcement at LinkedIn: “I became…
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Start smaller, cheaper, faster
An idea comes to you. Most people would stop here and let it go, but you know ideas are elusive; they depart once they think they’re not needed, and they’ll find someone else to breathe life into them. So you start looking into making it happen. You quickly realize it’s uncomfortably expensive to make the…
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What I discussed at Interintellect
I visited Interintellect today and discussed Creative Doing in a session hosted by Jason Shen. Here’s some of what we talked about! It was a lot of fun, and I’d love to do more of these. If you know anyone who’d be interested, please feel free to contact me or to leave a comment at…
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Outer scorecard, or inner scorecard
Make something to sell, or make something you like. Write something to get attention, or write something to express yourself. Care about the outcome, or care about the output. Focus on the future, or focus on the present. Serve your ego, or serve a person. Appear like you’re winning, or be happy with what you…
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1.5 hours with In the Air, on the Ground, under the Sea
Professor Jennifer Roberts, who teaches History of Art and Architecture at Harvard, has an exercise: spend three hours with a piece of artwork. Yesterday, I spent 1.5 hours with this one entitled, In the Air, on the Ground, under the Sea by Drawing Architecture Studio. It was incredibly rewarding. If you really like something or…
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The Doing Thinking Flywheel
A few days ago, I tweeted a quote from Austrian American scientist Heinz von Foerster, “If you want to think differently, first learn to act differently.” Foerster was also known as a pioneer in the field of cybernetics, which investigates communications and automatic control systems in machines and living beings. I’d included this in my…