Paint + Pipette
A blog on the art & science of creative action.
Try This Before You Give Up on GenAI
The fine folks over at Section recently interviewed me about some common mistakes I’m seeing folks make when they use AI. One of the biggest ones? The tendency to expect too little, and get just that.
Unleash Your Inner Kindergartener
Puzzled by underwhelming results despite your expertise? Discover the surprising insights from a groundbreaking study that can help you tackle challenges and achieve better outcomes.
Declare an AI Recess
One critical reason folks in organizations aren’t imagining radical new applications of GenAI is, their imaginations aren’t stimulated. My recommendation might fly in the face of convention, but it’s been demonstrated highly effective in both this AI-moment and in times past.
If AI Hasn't Made You Giggle, You're Not Pushing Hard Enough
For all the existential angst spilled regarding AI on the news, there's one danger I haven't heard get much attention. It's not the threat of sentient machines or the loss of jobs—it's the risk of AI disappointing us, not because of its limitations, but because of our own.
Mind the (Generational) Gap: Bridge the AI Divide with Your Expertise
Are you an experienced professional watching the AI revolution from the sidelines? It's time to get in the game! Discover why your hard-won expertise is the secret weapon to unlocking AI's full potential and turbocharging your career.
Forget About “New Ideas”
Two words most commonly associated with ideas are “good,” and “new.” I’ve often encouraged folks to forget “good.” Here’s the case for forgetting, “new,” too.
Practice in Community
Want to accelerate your pace of learning? Join a community of practice. We learn much more amongst fellow-learners eager to share insights from experiments conducted in radically different contexts.
Find Your People
New domains — whether hobbies or entrepreneurial ventures — are fraught with risk and failure. One way to hack the learning curve is to find fellow learners committed to the craft. Find your people, and you accelerate exponentially.
Express Appreciation
As holiday season comes upon us, it’s worth considering the outsized impact that simple gestures like expressing appreciation for others can have on our collective creative potential. One of the highest-ROI activities you can pursue is spurring someone else on in their craft.
Commit An Epiphany
Inside every single human being lies the potential to discover hence-unknown possibilities, to have an epiphany. My mission in life is to teach others the tools that turn that seemingly-magical moment into a methodical, repeatable reality.
Make Space to Fail
Business leaders should take a page out of one of the most brutally-straightforward innovation laboratories in the world: lessons from Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin’s stand-up routines.
Reflect on Experiments
Steve Martin’s reflection routine as a fledgling magician gives a masterclass in learning through experimentation: if you don’t reflect, you can’t connect the dots in unexpected ways.
Try Something Now
One of the greatest misconceptions in innovation is that folks start with a good idea. How rarely that’s true. Here’s to starting, followed by enlightened iteration.
Be Vulnerable
Jake Karls, co-founder of Mid Day Squares, flips the “perfectionist” script. Here he shares his unexpected formula for crafting deeply engaged fans.
Prioritize Learning
The single-most important decision I make weekly is to shed the “teacher’s cap” and put on the student’s. The only way to continue to inspire is to seek inspiration, myself.
Endure Rejection
A recurring theme on the road to creative mastery is how we (wrongly) perceive those who are successful as having never struggled. The truth is, many endured rejection.
Allow Folks to Play
If innovation is a numbers game, subject to considerable odds, then how can a leader bend the odds? IDEO’s Brendan Boyle says play is a key lever to drive the breadth of experimentation required to succeed.
Crystallize Your Knowledge
Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Charles Duhigg explains how we can turbo-charge sense-making, and turn information into valuable knowledge.
Say, “I Don’t Know”
“I don’t know,” might be three of the hardest words to say, especially for a professor. A leader is often conceived as the one who knows. And yet, not knowing creates space for the unexpected to emerge…
Be Willing To Be Bad
The best creators are constantly learning. There’s immense value in doing something you’re not good at, specifically for the sake of seeing an old thing from a fresh angle.