189: Inventing New Ways of Working Together

Writing to enhance thought and innovation in modern organizations

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Unrelated: Understanding Yourself Through Art

Use limitations and constraints to your advantage to boost creativity. Embrace the challenge of working with limited resources. When you're ready to share your work with the world, the internet is the best tool, allowing people from all over to find and appreciate your work. Consider posting reviews of the best books you've read lately, highlighting what made each memorable. Share your completed work and the creative process behind it, allowing others to learn from you and vice versa. Establish a website and social media presence to connect with others. Remember that you can't please everyone online, so focus on creating your art and ignore negative feedback. Anger can be a powerful motivator for creative work.

Once you've decided what to make, how should you make it? If you do all your work, avoid the computer for a while and incorporate an analog component. In contrast, working on a computer makes it easier to censor your ideas before you can explore them. Try only to use a computer when you get to the editing stage of a creative project.

Once you understand your creative voice, you must decide what you want to create. Think about the art that speaks to you and try to make it, even if it's not what you're used to. This contradicts the standard advice to "write (or draw or paint or build) what you know," which is a recipe for boring art. It's time to start creating. If that sounds scary, you're in good company: Many artists feel like they can only make great art once they understand who they are as a person and an artist. Yet, the opposite is true: The process of making art is how you'll come to understand yourself. 

[^]: Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Off Topic: Enhancing Learning through Writing

Writing practice enhances learning by helping us identify and fill gaps in our understanding. Writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thought occurs. If you want to learn and remember something long-term, write it down. If you're going to understand an idea, you must translate it into your own words. If writing is needed for thinking, why not use it to build up resources for future publications? That's where taking notes comes into the picture.

Taking notes is one principle that stands the test of time despite considerable changes in the underlying technology. Writing things down opens the door to understanding the essential nature of the creative process. First-principle thinking is typically used in physics; it is about identifying the fundamental truths about any problem. The ability to decompose problems at this level will give us the advantage of rearranging the facts in novel ways. Writing is a great way to pressure your thinking: it's hard to summarize something you need help understanding. By trying to explain an idea, you'll test many framings, flesh out its edges, and see new connections. Writing makes a train of thought visible. The process put pressure on the idea. Writing exposes gaps in understanding. It is easier to explain something with the knowledge. Writing is where we clash views, fledge out edges and find potential connections.

[^]: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Current Work: Inventing New Ways of Working Together

Business rules are procedures or regulations that aim to increase profitability or reduce costs for a company. Business rules are designed to establish the structure of the business and control or influence its behavior. Imagine having complete control over our shared funds and investing them in ways that benefit us all. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the commons often prevents us from sharing resources. Recognizing that individuals are not resources but unique people with valuable skills is crucial. By integrating teams and empowering individuals, a culture of innovation can thrive. Innovation can be challenging to pinpoint, but it happens when individuals are allowed to pursue new ideas. Trust people to sense opportunities and take risks. A culture of innovation occurs when operations and invention are inseparable. Embrace uncertainty and allow for variation and divergence to foster self-renewal.

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