What I'm Reading

Seth Godin on Stolen Ideas

2020-07-01 by Roberto Zoia Leave a Comment

The internet is a copying machine. Ideas morph and change and spin as they move from one end to the other. Ripping ideas off wholesale and violating intellectual property rights is nothing to be proud of–each of us can do better than that. But holding ideas too tightly in fear of the ripples and echoes they’re going to cause is the real problem.
Being original is an opportunity to advance the conversation. Building something of utility with persistence and grace is truly generous, though, and it’s not related to whether or not anyone has ever heard your idea before.

Displacement

2020-06-16 by Roberto Zoia Leave a Comment

(…) consider Whole Earth Catalog creator Stewart Brand’s idea that significant, impactful ideas will require at least five years of focused action to complete. Subtract your current age from eighty-five and divide by five — that’s how many significant projects you have left to do.
— Charlie Gilkey, Start Finishing (p. 60)

The Sheer Joy of Making Things

2020-06-12 by Roberto Zoia Leave a Comment

Frederick P. Brooks, “The Mythical Man-Month”, 1972:

The sheer joy of making things… the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles… the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination.

Storytelling

2020-06-10 by Roberto Zoia Leave a Comment

“Storytellers do not convert their listeners; they do not move them into the territory of a superior truth. Ignoring the issue of truth and falsehood altogether, they offer only vision. Storytelling is therefore not combative; it does not succeed or fail. A story cannot be obeyed. Instead of placing one body of knowledge against another, storytellers invite us to return from knowledge to thinking, from a bounded way of looking to an horizontal way of seeing.”

James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games, n. 78.

Competition is for Losers

2020-06-08 by Roberto Zoia Leave a Comment

David Perell, in 50 Ideas that Changed my Life:

Competition is for Losers: Avoid competition. Stop copying what everybody else is doing. If you work at a for-profit company, work on problems that would not otherwise be solved. If you’re at a non-profit, fix unpopular problems. Life is easier when you don’t compete. (Hint: don’t start another bottled water company).