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The Ideas

I use a scientific mind, artistic heart approach to define and apply original and powerful ideas so you can put them into action in your own pursuits.

I present the ideas in colorful slides, white papers, and narrative podcasts that explore the intersections of story, design, creativity, psychology, culture, and business. Enjoy!

Featured

Slide Summaries!

A great place to start is with these concise and colorful idea slides.​​

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Idea Slides Vol. 1

Original ideas for design principles 

 

For experience design, marketing, culture, comms, activism, creative, psych, and more​​​​​​

Slides

​​Original ideas for design processes

 

For strategy, design thinking, education, business, problem solving, and more​

Slides

Original ideas for storytelling

 

For epic, entertaining, artistic, everyday, practical, business, and data storytelling 

Slides

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Explore these ideas on the podcast

 

Each playful episode deeply defines and broadly applies one original and powerful idea

The Ideas List

Presented with slides, papers, and more

Topics: Story | Design | Creativity | Psychology | Communication | Organizations

Story

The Destiny Narrative

The timeless, persuasive, and powerful story in which a character changes into more of who they already are

The Destiny Narrative may be the most widely powerful story structure ever because of its unique ability to resolve the massive conflict between the desire to positively change and to authentically stay the same

Slides | Paper | Podcast 

Goal, Insight, Action

A model to best communicate the value of anything in three fundamental steps 

The goal is the motive and impetus, the insight is the clarity and authority, and the action is the specific and practical how 

Slides Paper

Multi-Narrative Storytelling

How to tell a big story through multiple, complimentary narratives

This form usually involves a the core story or “thesis” and then supports the core via multiple narratives that collectively bring more meaning than any one narrative could

Slides Paper | Podcast

Featured: Examples from Multi-Narrative Storytelling
Imagery with On Your Feet

Design

How to better begin everything

Portals are a special type of transition that create a positive anticipation of the event to come, facilitate the correct mindset shift, and complete the narrative metaphor of going somewhere new or magical

Slides Paper Podcast Pitch

Thrill, Take, Connect

A model for designing amazing experiences inspired by what makes a great Disney ride

Thrill comes from intense moments of excitement or calm, take comes from a sense of transportation and immersion, and connect comes from relating to stories, ideas, and people you already know and love

Slides Paper

The Ds of Design

A flexible model for designing and deciding anything, based on how different stages require very different mindsets

 

The model distinguishes steps, such as discovering, defining, deciding, designing, detailing, and delivering

Slides Extended Slides

The Metamodern Pendulum

A guide to designing for and leading people in our metamodern world

The biggest cultural shift of 21st century that some have yet to fully understand is how people today have a comfort and desire for "mixed" and "meta" things that oscillate between being ironic and sincere, sad and happy, or optimistic and realistic -- coupled with greater self-awareness of our own interior thoughts and "felt experiences" 

Slides Paper 

The Science of Cool

A literal scientific model and artistic expansion for breaking norms and making amazing things

It begins with the psychological truth that we almost all want to feel "cool," defined as a simultaneous sense of "autonomous freedom" and "positively belonging," and we are attracted to brands, things, and people that exude and make us feel this quality

Slides Paper

Featured: Examples from The Science of Cool
Graphics by Issac Auxier

Creativity

Lyrics About

The power of writing lyrics for innovation, discovery, and communication

Lyrics About are ideas captured in original lyrics that are written for purposes beyond the lyrics that may or may not have anything to do with artistic creation 

Paper | Project

Every Shade of Blue

A way of seeing all the different shades of an idea

 

The model is inspired by how Vincent van Gogh could paint with every shade of blue

Slides | Paper | Podcast

The Many Scienes of Yes, And

A unique scientific guide to the two words most fundamental to creativity, communication, and collaboration

This guide is both an argument for the value of applied improv and a unique source of scientific insights into how to better use applied improv in both broad and precise ways

Paper

Define + Apply

How to use knowledge to design 

The most powerful way to design something amazing is to first deeply define the relevant knowledge, science, and concepts, and then use those deep definitions to creatively apply -- this is a nuanced and massively overlooked skill set in business, academia, and art 

Slides | Extended Slides

Psychology

Solution Aversion

Why people deny solvable problems and how to overcome this denial

The aversion to the cure, answer, or "solution" can often be greater or more immediate than the aversion to the problem itself, leading to denial not just of the solution, but of the problem itself

Slides | Paper | Science

Welcome to Team Hero

A model for reaching new and resistant audiences through the act of welcoming

Specifically, you do three things: make others feel less averse to the solution or path, make them feel that joining team hero is in line with their true self, and make them feel that you socially accept and value them

Slides | Paper | Case

Love, Like, and Believe

The foundations for relationships across life, art, work, and community

​The point of this model is to understand how these three key foundations of Love, Like, and Believe are often distinct from one another and how easy it is to have too narrow of a view of relationships

Paper

The Competence-Enjoyment Link

Why what we feel about ourselves matters so much to what we enjoy

 

The subjective feeling of competence is uniquely important to our enjoyment and motivation in work, art, personal, entertainment, and consumer contexts

SlidesScience

The Egocentric Bias

A guide to the most fundamental human bias and how to overcome it

People tend to believe that how they experience the world is the same as how other people do, and this conscious and unconscious tendency biases everything -- sometimes more among those with more experience

Slides​ Science ​| Pitch

Featured: Comics About Psychology 
Art by MR Trower

Communication

Super Signals

A model for combining multiple forces to powerfully communicate

The best communications have always, intentionally or unintentionally, used multiple powerful forces to signal. This approach identifies these as “Super Signals” and provides instruction on how to reliably create them

Slides | Paper

Big Identity Net

How to make someone feel a meaningful part of something

​A Big Identity Net is an identity definition that is big enough that many people can feel a part of it, but also specific enough that it brings a sense of meaning and identity

Slides | Paper | Podcast 

Spoil, Simplify, Solidify

How to get people to remember what you have to say

​This is the model you need when you need  people to remember the meaning and detail of what you have to say -- in other words, this is the type of model everyone actually needs (except entertainers and politicians) that most have never learned

Paper

A.C.E. Teams

A model for what great teams consistently do: Acknowledge, Connect, and Explore

A.C.E. synthesizes science and practice in a model to help people feel heard, feel like they belong, and feel they have sense of ownership and positivity about the future

Guide | Approach

Business & Organizations

An explanation of why everything new is so hard


Today, we struggle with advanced and modern challenges because we never mastered fundamental skills 

Slides | Paper

How and why people with adjacent expertises should come together more often

Adjacents are people who are close enough to one another’s expertise to understand what one another does, but who are different enough to provide diverse perspectives and feedback

Slides | Paper

Everyday Sparks

The importance of everyday learning, sharing, and creating experiences

 

This model explores how building innovative people and organizations requires these everyday sparks that can easily be overlooked

Paper

How to find the value you already have but cannot currently see

Some invisible fruit is low hanging, while some is high on the tree; regardless, without the right expertise and methods, the invisible fruit will go unseen and unharvested

Slides | Paper

An explanation of why I love to use simple docs and slides so much.

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