Idea Surplus Disorder #88

Good morning and welcome to the post-Thanksgiving food coma edition of this newsletter.

This week, there's a mix of old and new for you to enjoy, including a Bluesky invitation, the explore/exploit continuum, the two-day rule, more walls, fewer screens, Magic 8-balls, rubber band guns, and more.

I'm Matt Homann and I'm glad you're here!

SuperCollider on December 6

We're hosting our final SuperCollider on December 6th, and we're focusing on ways to end the year well.

If you participated in Thinksgiving, it is also a great opportunity for a touch-base with your partner to reconnect and follow-up on your day together.

Join Me on Bluesky

I was user number 10,000-ish on Twitter (when it was still text-messaging based), and used that platform as my primary place to engage with smart people about cool things for 15+ years. Now, I seem to have found that same community-centered energy and engagement on Bluesky. Join me there.

Ideas + Insights

How does your business navigate the Explore-Exploit Continuum?

You need to be able to operate in two very different modes with different levels of uncertainty. For existing business models, you operate with relatively high certainty, and it is possible to make accurate forecasts about sales, and predictions about growth. These business models can be managed and improved through detailed planning and proper execution.

Contrary to the exploit end of the continuum, exploration is about searching for new value propositions and business models in an environment with high uncertainty. And the further an innovation is from your core business, the higher the uncertainty. Forecasts and plans make little sense in this uncertain environment, which is why a different financial approach, skillset and culture are required.

[The best buinesses] create, manage and harmonize two completely antagonistic cultures under one roof — a strong Explore and Exploit culture simultaneously. They cherish operational excellence, planning and constant improvements when managing the present. Yet, they know they cannot cost-cut themselves into the future. They simultaneously embrace a culture of rapid experimentation, failure, learning and adaptation when exploring ideas for the coming years and decades. However successful today, they don’t rest on their laurels, they are already working on tomorrow.

Expertise Kills Innovation:

Experts only know the way that got them there. They want to give answers, but innovation requires new questions. These new questions can only be asked by shifting ones perspective, a job outsiders are perfectly positioned for. Outsiders are the ones who change the game because they’re not blinded by expertise; they approach the situation. Companies, just like people, exploit their competence up to the point where it makes them irrelevant. Behind expertise is the need for certainty, but your need for certainty kills innovation.

I really love the idea of Weeknotes. It would be a great way to capture all the lessons learned on a project or a team in near real-time.

Maybe we need more walls and fewer screens (link broken):

Digital things look ‘finished’ too soon. when something is a work in progress on a wall, it looks unfinished, so you keep working on it. moving things around, reshaping things, connecting things, erasing things, and making them again. Walls make it easier to iterate. Iteration, in my opinion, is massively correlated with quality.

There is something about a group of people standing in front of a wall full of sketches, or index cards or post-it notes. Its a different kind of collaboration than you get around a table, or in a digital tool. You’re usually standing up, so you’re paying attention, you’re focused.

Overcome by the pressure of building a daily habit? Try the Two-Day Rule instead:

The two-day rule states that you should never let two days pass without acting towards your goal. If you miss going to the gym today, make sure you go tomorrow. If you didn’t read any of your book today, make sure you do so the next.

The two-day rule is so successful because it accepts that humans will occasionally fall short. We will have those everyday moments of private failure when we can’t be bothered or our willpower stays in bed. It’s also about balance. There are very few things in life we “should” do all of the time or every day. A rest day or a cheat day is important. But the two-day rule is brilliant because it doesn’t let you off the hook. It says, “Okay, time’s up, back to it,” and “Okay, you failed, now try again.”

It's amazing how many of these 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People also show up in organizations. Any sound familiar in yours?

1. Be afraid, be very afraid, of economic loss. In hard economic times, many people are afraid of losing their jobs or savings. The art of messing up your life consists of indulging these fears, even when there’s little risk that you’ll actually suffer such losses. Concentrate on this fear, make it a priority in your life, moan continuously that you could go broke any day now, and complain about how much everything costs, particularly if someone else is buying. Try to initiate quarrels about other people’s feckless, spendthrift ways, and suggest that the recession has resulted from irresponsible fiscal behavior like theirs.

6. Whatever you do, do it only for personal gain. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to help someone, contribute to a charity, or participate in a community activity. Don’t do it, unless there’s something in it for you, like the opportunity to seem like a good person or to get to know somebody you can borrow money from some day. Never fall into the trap of doing something purely because you want to help people. Remember that your primary goal is to take care of Numero Uno, even though you hate yourself.

11. Ruminate. Spend a great deal of time focused on yourself. Worry constantly about the causes of your behavior, analyze your defects, and chew on your problems. This will help you foster a pessimistic view of your life. Don’t allow yourself to become distracted by any positive experience or influence. The point is to ensure that even minor upsets and difficulties appear huge and portentous.

The Simple Joy of No Phones Allowed:

Every time someone in a group of people deploys a screen, the whole group is affected. Each disengaged person in a crowd is like a little black hole, a dead zone for social energy, radiating a noticeable field of apathy towards the rest of the room and what’s happening there.

Fun Finds

• Loved this video testing out popular internet hacks.
• Cease and desist? No. Continue and persist!
• Photo books recommended by visionaries.
• A ten-hour video of oceanscapes from the BBC.
• How the Magic 8-Ball was invented.
• Bond's rubber band gun.
• The Digital Comic Museum.

Words of Wisdom

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” ― Meister Eckhart

"The world will ask you how you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you." – Carl Jung

"Anxiety is some amount of uncertainty coupled with our underestimation of our ability to cope.” – Becky Kennedy

“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.” – Albert Einstein

"There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair." – Donella Meadows

"Practice does not make perfect. It is practice, followed by a night of sleep, that leads to perfection." – Matthew Walker

"The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious." – John Sculley

"People who talk when they’ve nothing to say are an annoyance, but those who do have something important to say, yet duck their opportunity to say it are less of an annoyance and more a tragedy" – Tim Harford